


hit the ground running

by stygianalpha



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Eudora Patch Lives, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy has PTSD, Panic Attacks, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26053126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stygianalpha/pseuds/stygianalpha
Summary: Five may be panicking, but it's fine. He can handle himself.even if he ends up struggling to breathe in public, or hiding from his siblings...//in which Five expects the worst to happen, wears himself thin trying to prevent it, and has panic attacks at inopportune times.post season 2, no timeline messes, no apocalypse. we know this, he does not.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & The Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy)
Comments: 62
Kudos: 379





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> look yo idk either, i was pressured into this by a friend (:
> 
> here's the important facts:  
> 1\. there's no Sparrow Academy cause I'm only here for one thing and that does not involve speculating on that mess.  
> 2\. yes, its 2019 again. yes, it'll be expanded on.  
> 3\. unfortunately, Benny Boy is still dead ): and we miss him  
> 4\. Eudora is alive because I fuckin said so.
> 
> tags may be updated as this progresses.

Gray skies greeted him. Dark clouds spanned the horizon, beams of sunlight breaking through the weakest clouds. The light hardly reached the ground, a thick haze keeping it just out of reach. It was a sky that once promised rainfall, thunder and lightning. A sign that the parched earth should be soaked soon, maybe even show signs of life beyond bugs and Five himself. 

He dragged his eyes from the dismal sky to the shattered world around him. Broken buildings, shells of what they once were, stretched on as far as he could see. All a uniform color of beige, darkened by ash and pitted by dirt, by the dust the winds threw about. Steel beams jutted forth into the sky, reaching to the clouds. It was the same in every direction, wreckage forming an uneven circle around where Five lay on his back in the dirt. 

Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet, expecting aches in his knees and a twinge in his back - but of course there weren't any. He was a teenager again, young, dressed in that damn uniform like always. Five drew in a breath, tasting the ash and death. Somewhere nearby should be his things - the books, food, water, better clothing. Delores. He took a step forward, and the buildings surrounding him were in flames. 

The ash in the air became heat, stifling and sharp as it spun off the burning buildings and down his throat. Each breath burnt, searing his lungs. Five coughed, raised an arm to his face to block the worst of it, and squinted past the fires that pushed in on him. This wasn’t right, the buildings had only burned in the beginning - all the fires had died out years ago -

But the flames were unrelenting, hot and brutal, and the ash was growing thicker with every breath he took. He took a step, stumbling over a loose piece of concrete, and then he was sprinting down the shattered street of his youth, moving just fast enough to avoid the earth decaying at his back. He was screaming as he ran, words ripped from his throat - no. Not words. Names. His siblings’ names, torn from the air as soon as they left his mouth, disappearing into the smoke that hung over him. 

Someone stood amongst the rubble ahead of him. He knew it was Vanya as soon as her name was stolen from him. Only a few more steps and he would reach her. A distant rumbling started in the distance as he approached, a low growl that built and built with each step, pieces of the Academy shaking as he neared Vanya. 

She looked at him, past him, white eyes wide. Blood was blooming over her clothing but rather than stain it dark, it grew white, brighter than it should be in a world of ash and fire and death and decay.

Five reached for her, grasping her arm with one hand. She sunk down anyway, falling to the pile of rubble without a word. Behind them, a building fell to the ground, the crash loud and jolting and Five spun-

His eyes snapped open, not to a burning world but to soft green walls scribbled over with chalk. For a bewildered moment, all he could dredge up was the dream - the twisted version of the apocalypse - before reality shoved its way in. This was the Academy, specifically, his room at the Academy with his frantic probabilities covering its walls. He was seated at his desk, had fallen asleep over sheets of paper filled with more equations. There was no apocalypse, they had done it, had come back to their home standing. 

They should all be safe. 

But the desk was shifting beneath his arms, almost a gentle rocking. Five stared at it, his heart thudding against his ribcage, the noise of it reaching his ears. He drew a sharp breath and it burned-

_ -like fire, like ash searing down his throat-  _

He remembered the buildings falling, the rumble of it that had shaken the earth. That was a dream and he knew that, but he was jumping to his feet regardless. One hand tossed the chair back, the other twisting in the papers atop his desk, wrinkling the sheets. The chair hit the floor with a clatter that rattled in his mind as he darted across the room to wrench the window open. 

Outside, the night air was cool. A car alarm was blaring several streets over. It didn’t look as if anything was amiss, but something was happening. If it wasn’t the hellscape of the apocalypse, then there was only one thing it could be. He thought of the Icarus Theatre, of the glass ceiling shattering, of Vanya on the stage. 

Five clambered out his window, desperate to find his sister and stop whatever had gotten to her this time. He nearly tripped onto the fire escape before taking the stairs at a run. Halfway down, he jumped to the ground instead, stumbling out of the spatial rip as he landed mid sprint. Vanya didn’t stay at the Academy. She had gone back to her own apartment after spending that first night with the rest of them, insisting on carrying on with her orchestra. She had seemed perfectly fine when Five had seen her last, but something had gone wrong somehow. 

Something had set her off. Again. 

He took the empty streets at a sprint, pushing himself to go faster even as his lungs screamed for air and his legs ached. The way to Vanya’s place was etched into his mind - he knew the turns to take, how long it should take to get there. He’d be fine, this body would recuperate quickly and even if it couldn’t, he had to get to Vanya, had to stop it from happening again. The world in his dream had faded but the one he’d lived in loomed in the back of his mind as he ran. 

A cat screeched in an alley as he sprinted past. The sound had him opening a portal, stepping out a street closer to Vanya’s. By the time he reached the building, his whole body shook. He gave in for a second, leaning with his hands on his knees, chest heaving. Sweat ran down his forehead. He eyed the darkened windows of Vanya’s apartment and a quiet part of his mind whispered that it looked fine. 

One last teleport and he stood in Vanya’s living room. It was dark and he paused, squinting. The streetlights bled through the windows, dimly outlining pieces of furniture - the couch, the table. He moved through the room on legs that felt too weak, shaking hands clenched into fists. 

Five called out, “Vanya?” He stood at the edge of her kitchen, straining his ears to hear anything. “Vanya!”

He thought he could make out rustling through the door to her room. It was hard to tell; his heartbeat was still echoing in his ears. After another moment of silence, he prepared himself to just portal into her room. 

Then a light flickered on, sudden in the darkness, and he winced. 

Vanya stood in the doorway to her room, a baseball bat in her hands. Her hair was down, she wore a pair of sweats and an old t-shirt rumpled by sleep, and her eyes… her eyes were brown. Normal. The light from her room spread behind her, casting most of her in shadows, but the confusion on her face was still evident. She said, “Five?” 

He blinked. Tension in his shoulders unwound, pieces of anxiety shedding themselves. He eyed the bat she held as she lowered it. 

“What are you doing here?” Vanya asked. She walked closer, pausing to turn on the kitchen light, and turned her attention back to him. Instantly, she dropped the bat to the floor and took another step to him, reaching out hesitantly only to drop her hands to her sides again. “Jesus. Are you alright?”

Five could imagine what he looked like to her - sweaty, for one. He was still in the Academy uniform in the middle of the night, which was another matter on its own, and his hands still shook. He shoved them into his pockets with a frown. 

Before he answered her, he flicked his gaze over Vanya’s face. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to even hint at her powers being out of control. She just looked tired. He glanced at the closest window, at the darkness of night, and grimaced. “Hello, Vanya,” he said quietly. 

He’d woken her up in the middle of the night, and for what? 

“Five, is - is something wrong?” 

With the light on, he could give the apartment a quick glance as well. Nothing was broken.

“Do you need me at the Academy?” 

He settled his eyes back on Vanya. “No, everything’s fine.” 

Vanya didn’t look convinced. “Then why are you here?”

Because he had woken from a dream and thought the worst. “Just checking in.” 

“It’s, like, two in the morning. You can’t check on me later?” 

He usually would have. He should have this time as well. Five sighed, shrugged one shoulder, and said, “Is that bat your only weapon?” He watched Vanya’s face twist in confusion and continued. “We should really get you something better, although I do admire that kind of reaction. Never know who could be breaking into your apartment in the middle of the night.” He moved away as he spoke, making his way to the couch to sit. 

All the energy he had had on the way here had ebbed away, leaving him worn out and tired once more. 

Vanya took the chair across from him. “Please tell you didn’t break into my apartment for some kind of weird test,” she said. 

“I didn’t break in,” he said. 

Vanya stared at him. She looked more tired now than she had in the kitchen - but of course she would be. Five wasn’t a threat to her so there was no need for her to be awake. “Did you teleport in here, Five?” 

He didn’t answer. 

Vanya yawned. 

Five fought the urge to copy her, lowering his gaze to the floor. There was no need for him to be here. He could have waited until daylight, should have stayed where he was. Now Vanya was falling asleep in her chair and Five couldn’t even remember the details of the dream that had set him off. As the silence began to stretch between them, he thought of the desk moving. Had he imagined that? It was possible. 

When Vanya broke the silence, her voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

Five raised his head, locked eyes with her, and nodded once. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Vanya looked as if she wanted to speak, but only shrugged one shoulder. She rose from the chair a moment later, running a hand over her face as she yawned again. “Right, well… I’m going back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?” 

He didn’t say anything, just watched as she made her way through the kitchen, turning the light off as she went. The small apartment plunged into darkness again. Although she hadn’t said it, Five knew that Vanya had extended an offer to crash on her couch - just as she had when he had first shown up those few weeks ago. She wouldn’t mind at all if he slept here, would say nothing if she woke up to him still here. May even put on coffee for them both. 

And just like then, Five had no intentions of staying here. There was a blanket over the back of the couch and he ran his fingers over the edge of it. He would wait a few minutes, just to be sure she was asleep again, and then he’d take his leave. Go back to the Academy and the math scrawled over his desk. 

✦✦✦✦✦

Vanya awoke to the sound of traffic outside her bedroom window. Eyes closed, she listened to the soft noise of cars passing by, of horns echoing from down the street. She could have gone back to sleep; her only plan today was to practice the new piece for the orchestra, after all. In the warm cocoon of the blankets, sleep rose like a wave to reclaim her. 

Only to be pushed away by a dreamlike memory of Five standing in her apartment. She left the room still half asleep, uncertain if Five had really been there until she spotted him in the living room. 

He lay on her couch, fast asleep. As Vanya approached him, she realized he was lying on top of the blanket, snoring softly. Since he was here, and last night did happen, she was relieved. It may be fleeting, but her memory of Five last night… He had looked more frantic than she had ever seen him, and she’d been positive something bad had happened to send him here. She had been afraid to touch him, afraid he’d bolt and disappear before she could calm him down. 

With a sigh, Vanya reached for the edge of the blanket that hung over the back of the couch. She pulled the part of it Five wasn’t sleeping on over him softly, careful not to wake him. Hopefully, by the time he was awake, she would have breakfast for them both. 

She took her time in the shower, almost half an hour, and then cast a look at her brother before she started cooking. He hadn’t moved and if she listened closely, she could hear his snores. That was alright with her; she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen Five actually sleep. Even that one night she stayed at the Academy, he had been awake when she had drifted off. 

Whenever he did wake up, Vanya figured he should eat. She rummaged through her small kitchen and found an alarming lack of breakfast foods. Three eggs left in the fridge, plenty to split between them. There was bread, but the only thing she had to go on toast was butter. A single frozen waffle. She found half of a sausage buried in the back of her fridge and paused to make sure it was still good to eat before adding it to the sad pile of food on the counter. 

She found coffee in a cabinet above the fridge. Nothing fancy, but it’d be fine. Better than none at all. 

As she set the water to start heating, pulled a pan out to cook with, Vanya decided that she could work grocery shopping into her schedule today. 

In no time at all, the meager breakfast was ready - scrambled eggs and toast on two plates, sausage sizzling away. The coffee was dripping and would be ready soon. All she needed were mugs for the coffee, and she turned from the stove to retrieve them. 

Only to jump back into the counter, startled. Five stood less than two feet from her, shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets. Bleary-eyed and messy haired, he had clearly just woken up. 

Vanya let out a heavy sigh, putting a hand to her chest. “God,” she muttered, “you scared me.” She let her hand fall, turning back to the stove. Had Five always moved that quiet, able to enter rooms without a sound, or did he actually teleport the short distance in here? She wouldn’t put it past him, honestly. “You need a bell or something.” 

Five grunted, the noise petering off into a low hum. 

Vanya shot a glance over her shoulder at him. “Good morning to you too,” she said. “You can go back to sleep if you’re still tired.”

He wasn’t looking at her, eyes fixated on something to her left. After a pause, he said, “Coffee,” with a small motion toward the machine. 

Vanya followed his gaze. “Oh. Yeah. It’s not ready yet.” She paused to flip the sausages and by the time she looked up, Five had moved to her table. He sat with his arms folded over its surface and in the few seconds he watched, he badly stifled a yawn. 

And in the few short minutes it took to finish cooking, to pour coffee into two mugs, her brother had dozed off at the table. Vanya paused, coffee mugs in either hand, a frown pulling at her mouth. A seed of worry had sprouted in her gut, born from the sudden appearance of Five last night and fed by the sight of him now - head held up in one hand, a stiffness to his shoulders. With a sigh, she set a mug in front of him with more noise than necessary. As expected, his eyes snapped open again and he reached for it. He murmured a thanks over the rim of the mug when Vanya set the plate of food down before him. 

It was quiet while they ate, only the sound of silverware scraping against the plates. Five had made a face upon tasting the coffee, but hadn’t said a word. He was drinking more than he was eating anyway, the food on his plate remaining mostly untouched. 

It did seem to be waking him up, the weariness and tired haze fading from him. 

Vanya spoke after a few minutes, when her own plate was half empty. “Hey, uhm... Are you sleeping okay?” 

Five leveled her with a stare just short of judgmental. Rather than answer, he took another sip of coffee. 

So Vanya gestured at her table with one hand. “It’s just that you fell asleep at my table,” she said. 

“I hadn’t had any coffee yet,” he said. 

“Yeah, okay, but - “

“I’m sleeping fine, Vanya.” 

“But last night,” Vanya pushed, “you showed up here at two in the morning, looking like- like you had run a marathon or something.” She could see his eyes narrow, could picture walls building up. “And I don’t buy that surprise test or whatever it was you said last night. What happened, Five?” 

Five tapped the side of his mug with one hand, the other clenching the handle. “What happened,” he said, “was that you reacted incredibly slow to someone being in your apartment.” 

Vanya blinked. “What?” 

“You have to be prepared for anything,” he said. “What if it hadn’t been me last night? If someone had broken in with the intent to hurt you, they would have been in your room before you even noticed.”

“Who would - ? I’d hear someone breaking in, Five!” That would actually make enough noise to rouse her, unlike Five’s teleportation. 

He ignored her, eyes drifting around her apartment. “You should work on your reaction time,” he said. “We can’t have you being attacked when you live so far from the rest of us.” 

Vanya made a face. She recognized that Five was trying to change the subject, turn the conversation away from himself, but the first thing she thought was- “Allison’s going back to California. Why am I being singled out?” 

Five leveled her with a smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “Allison knows how to protect herself. I know it isn’t your fault that you don’t, but…” He trailed off, opting to take another sip of coffee. 

“I can handle myself,” Vanya objected. “I think.” She was getting better at using her powers, so she could handle anyone who wanted to hurt her. Maybe even without tearing down a building when she did. 

“It’s alright,” Five said. “Maybe I’ll see if Diego is willing to help teach you.” Not even a second later, he rolled his eyes. “No, he’s too big of an idiot. Allison would be better.” This time when he smiled, it was a bit more believable. “I’d help of course.” 

The confidence in every word almost had her convinced this really was why he had come over. That he was simply worried. Vanya sighed, wishing that was the only reason. She may not know much about any of her siblings, especially Five, but showing up that late for a test? Yeah. That was a little in line for them. “Is that really why you came here?” she asked. 

“I only wanted to make sure you’re safe,” Five said. 

That was nice to hear and Vanya gave him a small smile before lowering her gaze back to her plate. After a few moments of silence, she said, “Five? You know that, if there was something bothering you, you can talk to me. Right?” She glanced up at him in time to watch him sigh. 

Five said nothing. He brought the mug up to his lips and proceeded to down the remaining coffee without pause. “This has been fun,” he said when he finished, “but I think it’s time for me to go.” 

“What? Five, come on, you don’t have to go.” 

“I should go see what the rest of them are up to,” he said, standing. The chair scraped against her floor. “Did you hear that Klaus wants to renovate the Academy yet? I really should stop him before he tries anything.” 

“Five-”

“I’m not sure what Klaus’s idea of a renovation is, and I’d rather not go back to find the entire Academy picked apart.” Five shot her another smile - one of those meant to look charming and innocent - and waved one hand her way. “I’ll see you again soon, Vanya.” Before she could get another word out, he vanished, pulling himself through one of his rips. The last sign of him was the soft sound of the air rushing into the space he left behind.

Vanya sat at her kitchen table, staring at where Five had been sitting seconds before. “Dammit.” 

✦✦✦✦✦

Outside Vanya’s apartment, the sun shone as it rose in the sky. People passed by on their way to work, snippets of conversation sinking into the din of the traffic. Five made his way down the sidewalk in the direction of the Academy, almost retracing his frantic steps from the night before. Not that he had any intention of returning just yet. Nice days were a rare commodity, both during the apocalypse and after it, and it would be a waste to head straight home. The rest of his family would be fine on their own for a little while. 

Even if they hadn’t been anything except a pain in his ass since they landed back here. Returning from 1963 had been an ordeal in and of itself, but at least everything seemed fine. No immediate threats. The world was still standing in one piece - as was the Academy itself, a fact he hadn’t bothered to think about but was an immense relief. After decades of not knowing where he would rest for a night, having a solid roof waiting for him was grand. 

Being back in 2019 did not, however, mean his family was any less irritating. Between Luther appointing himself head of the household, Klaus varying between renovation ideas (and he used that word loosely) or following one of the others’ around or drinking, and Allison tying up the phone all day and blatantly refusing to help out with anything that needed doing... 

He’d say he was thankful Diego and Vanya had gone back to their respective apartments, but Diego was always over anyway and Vanya wasn’t over enough. 

It was tiring. Being in the house became more taxing every day, little by little. Perhaps it was due to Five having always been busy - busy surviving, with equations, with saving his family and the world twice over. Quiet days were almost a foreign concept.

Regardless, he deserved a little time to himself without one of them disrupting his quiet. Some time outside in a world that wasn’t filled with ash or decay. They had been in 2019 for four days now, and while Five was careful to prepare for any threats - to himself, his family, the world as a whole - there was only so much he could do with unknown variables. 

There was a park halfway between Vanya’s apartment and the Academy. Not directly in the path, but easy to reach through a few backstreets and shortcuts through alleyways. He’d be there in no time at all, and may actually relax for once. Five took his time navigating the city streets, and before too long he stood one street away from his destination. 

The park was behind the row of apartment buildings directly across the street, and right beside him was a small coffee shop. Sure, he had drank the coffee Vanya had given him, but it wasn’t the best. Pretty bad, actually. Obviously of the instant variety. He considered the glass door of the shop, leaning closer to get a look inside. A couple people sat at small tables next to the wall, one person behind the counter. He paused just long enough to make sure he had money in his pocket and then pushed the door open. 

Instantly, the smell of fresh coffee hit him. He took a breath and hoped dearly that this place would know how to make good coffee because he had yet to find any in this damn city. The barista looked up as the door opened, as did the man closest to it. The counter held displays of various sweets, slices of cake and fudge placed neatly on trays alongside muffins and cupcakes. Five scanned over all of it before turning his attention to the barista. He smiled but before he could get a word out, the woman spoke. 

“Can I help you, kid?” She looked at him skeptically, leaning against the counter near the register. 

“I’d like a coffee.” 

She didn’t move. 

Five had his hands in his pockets, leaning back on his heels while he considered the small shop. “That is what you do here, right? Sell coffee?”

The barista frowned. “Yeah.”

“Then I’d like your best coffee. Black. Largest size ya got.” 

Again, she didn’t move. “Shouldn’t you be in school?” she asked. “It’s a weekday.” 

The smile grew strained but Five managed to not glare at her, so that was worth something. “I don’t need to be,” he ground out, teeth bared. “Now, are you going to get me a coffee or not?” 

The barista sighed heavily, pushing away from the counter with a roll of her eyes. As she turned away from him to work, Five spotted a small TV sitting on a shelf along the wall. Obviously set back there for the barista’s entertainment over the customers, it was muted or left so quiet he couldn’t hear a sound. He could make out the picture though, a weather map of some kind, areas highlighted. The banner running underneath read magnitude 3.0 earthquake in a neighboring city.

Instantly, he recalled the previous night, the desk that had moved beneath him. He had been chalking it up to disorientation from the dream he had had, but an earthquake was plausible. At least it’d mean he wasn’t imagining things. 

The barista set the coffee down before him, he handed over his single five dollar bill, and that was that. Five had coffee that would hopefully taste better than Vanya’s. The barista could keep the change. All that was left now was solitude in the park and some time well spent away from his siblings. 

Except he turned to leave and a man stood in front of him. Heavyset, dressed in a dark uniform, and regarding Five with the most condescending smile he had seen in days. “Alright, kid,” the man said. It was probably meant to be patient but in two words, it already came across as patronizing. “Let’s get you to school, yeah?” 

Five took a sip of the coffee rather than answer. It wasn’t the best, but it was at least better than Vanya’s instant swill. 

“Kid,” the man tried again. 

“Can you get out of my way?” Five said. He looked up at the man, eyes catching on the ‘security’ patch stitched over the pocket of his shirt. 

“There’s no need to be rude,” the man continued. “Tell me what school you go to and I’ll get you there. Give you a ride, make your little friends jealous.” 

Five laughed, short and disbelieving. “That’s what everyone wants. A ride in a security guard’s car.” He paused, looking up at the man again. The guard was balding. “Actually, wouldn’t that look a bit bad for you? Taking a kid into your car is just a little bit creepy for someone your age.” 

There was a smothered bark of laughter from the direction of the barista. 

The smile melted off the man’s face. “You know truancy is illegal, don’t you?”

“So is pedophilia.” 

The man made a grab at him that Five easily dodged, stepping back as he did. “I just want to help you, kid. If you don’t wanna go to school, at least let me call your parents for you.”

Five considered dumping his fresh coffee down the man’s front. It’d be a waste of coffee but it’d end this hellish conversation very fast. “Stop calling me kid,” he said instead, grip tight around the coffee cop. Heat bled through the material, warming his fingers. “Unless you want me to shove your face into the display case.” 

The man’s face contorted into surprise, then anger. “Listen here, you little shit - “

The barista cut him off, saying loudly, “Knock it off.” When they both turned to look at her, she said, “Stop harassing the boy. I think you kind of passed the line once a teenager threatens you.” 

Five gestured at her with his coffee, grinning at the man. “Get out of my way,” he said, “before I dump this coffee on your face.” 

The man moved away after another couple seconds, keeping a seering glare on Five the entire time. Five gave him no more attention, nodding to the barista in thanks before leaving. As the door shut behind him, he heard the beginnings of an argument between the guard and the barista. Well. Not his problem. He drank deeply from the cup in his hand, crossing the street to where the park stood. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I was only here for one thing and I meant it.  
> that thing is pain and panic attacks.  
> it's coming. it'll be f u n.
> 
> Eudora shows up next chapter I promise. <3  
> you'll just have to take my word that she's alive and not pressure for too many details. when I tried to discuss it with my friend, she went on a rant about timelines and time travel that hurt my head so I quit thinking about it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> diego and the boys take a shopping trip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like i should just go ahead and say that i am actually incapable of making serious chapter summaries so i apologize ahead of time for the fact that they're all gonna be dumb. 
> 
> muchas gracias to my space wife gal pal for helping me through parts of this <3s

By the time Five made it back to the Academy, it was nearing midday. The sun was rising steadily in the sky and the only reason he had left the quiet of the park when he had was due to an old man asking why he wasn’t in school. He was well aware that, for all intents and purposes, he looked the part of a teenager skipping school. For it to be brought up to him by three separate people in one morning, however, was more than enough of a reminder. At least at the Academy, the only person who treated him like a child was Grace and since she treated all of them like that, it was hard to find fault with her. 

The street outside the manor had its fair share of passersby, as usual. Five ignored them all, cutting between two small groups to head into the alley that led to the courtyard. The space between wings of the Academy was more dismal than the well-cared-for park, with brown grass stubbornly refusing to turn green with the changing of seasons and scraggly bushes whose vines climbed up the walls. The gazebo held evidence of life at least - a pair of empty alcohol bottles, one on its side. Rather than open the door into the house, Five let himself in through a rip, and from there it was just a short walk to the stairs down to the basement kitchen. 

He heard Grace’s cheerful humming before he even made it down the stairs, the sound mingling with the clinking of glass. She was one of the perks of returning to a still standing home. Since the roundtrip through time had somehow resulted in Vanya not pulling the entire building down, Grace was alive and back to doting upon them all. 

Diego had been the happiest to see her again, of course. Had nearly tripped over himself in his haste to get to her side. It was almost cute.

(And Vanya was still struggling with the guilt over killing their mother and Pogo in the previous 2019. Five suspected it was one of the reasons she had left for her own place as quick as she had. Some day, he’d work on helping her get past that. Somehow.)

Once Five passed through the doorway, he was greeted by not only Grace but by Luther. Grace stood by the stove; Luther sat at the table, a notepad in front of him and a pen nearly swallowed in one hand. Both looked his way and while Grace smiled at him, Luther was frowning. 

“Good afternoon, dear,” Grace said.

“Where have you been?” Luther said. 

Five answered him as he crossed the kitchen to the fridge. “Needed some time away from all of you.” The fridge was getting sparse, Five noted. He made a face at the nearly empty shelves and reached for the peanut butter. “Figured you idiots couldn’t cause too much damage for a few hours.”

“Right. So, uh. Vanya called earlier.” 

“Does this have a point, Luther?” He nudged past Grace as he spoke, snagging the bread off the counter. He paused to set what he held on the table and caught Luther’s eye before jumping through a rip to a cabinet on the other side of Grace. 

Luther had been staring at him sternly, furrows digging into his brow and accentuating the wrinkles developing around his eyes. “She said you woke her up in the middle of the night.” 

Five ripped open a cabinet door with a hushed curse. Beside him, he heard Grace’s disapproving noise at his choice of words. “Vanya spoke to you?” he asked. The bag of marshmallows was almost empty but it’d do for now. “That’s unusual. Wasn’t aware you two had conversations that didn’t take place in a family meeting.”

“Well, she spoke to Allison - “

Five pulled a drawer open and took a knife before jumping back to the table. He smiled stiffly at Luther as he set to making himself a sandwich. “Cut to the chase already, would you? I have things to do.” 

Luther tapped the pen he held against the table. “Apparently, you woke her up with some nonsense about a test, told her she needed training, and then disappeared. Hours ago.” 

Five waved a hand for Luther to continue. 

“She was asking if you made it back yet,” Luther said. “Though Allison was more interested in the training thing. Were you even going to ask her about it? Or was Vanya just gonna show up one day expecting it to happen?”

“Of course I was going to talk to Allison.” He didn’t bother to say anything else even as Luther continued on about what they were even supposed to teach Vanya or how they were supposed to teach her. Luther said that Allison wasn’t even sure if she was a good teacher, and Five ignored him to empty the remainder of the marshmallows onto the sandwich. 

As Five took his snack in hand, Luther said, “Are you even listening to me?”

“No.” He blinked past the table to the doorway, anxious to head upstairs to the work he’d left unfinished. 

Grace’s voice made him pause. “Oh, Five? Lunch is in an hour. Don’t ruin your appetite.” She was still smiling when he looked over his shoulder at her, warm and caring and so full of love that it made tension wind down his spine. She shouldn’t be directing such a look at him - not when he had disappeared so long ago, had spared her so little thought while fighting to return. 

The work he had to do called even stronger, but now with an added element. Grace needed to be worked into his equations, another person he needed to keep safe. Someone he should have been including from the start. The need to leave built into an itch that made him want to abandon his freshly made food and lose himself in the math until things made sense. 

Luther said, “Where are you going?” 

Five’s gaze snapped to him. “I told you,” he said, and irritation dripped from every word. It wasn’t intentional. His mind was already racing to fit Grace into place alongside the others and he didn’t care to keep talking. “I’ve got work to do. Things you couldn’t even begin to understand.” He turned back to the doorway. 

Right before he pulled through a rip, he heard Luther comment, “I  _ could _ …” 

He only took himself to the stairs, climbing up them quickly. It would have been better for the kitchen to have been empty. Now, after dealing with Luther and Grace, his simple goal of redoing the trickier equations from yesterday was falling aside. Those had to do with his newfound control of time itself, math meant to make it easier to predict how and when he could implement it. It would take time to nail all of it down, to be sure that if he attempted to rewind time around himself again, it wouldn’t fail him. It was important that he figure it out as quickly as possible. 

And yet, one encounter with his mother and Five decided his powers could wait for now. Tomorrow may be better. 

For right now, he had to turn back to the other side of his work. The probability maps that concerned the likelihood of another apocalypse. Long strings of complex mathematical equations that covered sheet after sheet of paper, running off of one and onto the next. He had started them that very first night they arrived back, sitting at a stool and hunched over the bar, a marker in hand. The initial lines had been scrawled onto the bar itself before he had snatched a book off a shelf and started writing in its margins. From there, it was onto spare sheets of paper. 

Nothing was easy with his family. He was learning that after these past weeks back with them. While he had saved them from the initial destruction of the moon, doing so had scattered them across the 1960s. Pulling them back together after the fact hadn’t been any easier than yanking them with him through time. Leaving the sixties had almost seemed like an unattainable dream, a fleeting wish that had been wrenched from his hands and scattered to the wind. 

Returning to 2019 in one piece was almost a miracle. If Five believed in such things, he would call it just that. 

He took the stairs to the third floor of the house with equations already unraveling in his head. Allison stood in the hall, on the phone, watching him ascend the stairs. He was aware of her covering the phone to call his name but he ignored her. 

The fact that the Academy stood in one piece may have been a relief, but he hadn’t yet shaken the feeling that it wouldn’t stay that way. That something was waiting just out of sight, waiting for them all to relax before it attacked. Waiting for Five to let his guard down. 

Again, he heard Allison call after him. 

He slammed the door to his room closed in response. 

Inside the room, the window had been closed and his desk chair pushed back in. The stack of papers he had been working on were neatly piled. He knew at once that Grace had been in to tidy it up. He sat down at the desk, took a bite of his sandwich, and pulled the papers to him. The ones he had written on were tossed to the floor until he found the first empty sheet and then Five bent over the desk, writing. The lines became messier the longer he worked, numbers and letters and symbols linking together as he tried to write as fast as his mind worked. 

The thing about being back here - back in the Academy, in 2019, in a world that was whole and unaffected by imminent death or destruction - it left him uneasy. 

It couldn’t last. 

It never lasted. 

Five had only been back with his siblings for a few short weeks, had spent part of that time in another decade entirely, and he was sure that the Hargreeves could never relax. They could never have a nice life, an easy time uncomplicated by wars or gunfire or the world shattering around them. Something about this family attracted dangerous attention and one way or another, that factor would lead to the death of his siblings. He had seen them dead too many times now - 

_ once had been too many, a sight branded onto his skull at such a young age, something he could never shake _

\- he refused to see it again. He’d work himself to exhaustion if it meant keeping his idiot family safe, and that included Grace. Her unwavering affection and devotion for all of them was something precious. Five himself may not be used to it, each display of love towards him making his skin itch as if something was crawling beneath it, but he had to keep her safe as well. He couldn’t fail them again - not his siblings, nor Grace, nor Pogo. 

There were many things that could lead to the Hargreeves’ deaths, to Five’s own failure. It was difficult working around unknown variables, especially when each semi-decent conclusion only brought with it more questions and possibilities to calculate, but he’d figure it out. Whatever happened, Five would be ready and his family would have a plan. 

He worked through the rest of the day and into the night, filling page after page, littering the floor around him with unsatisfactory work. 

✦✦✦✦✦

The Academy had never been a place Diego planned to return to, even after coming back from the sixties. Too much shit tied to one building, enough bad memories and other such bullshit to keep him from coming back when he’d left. Then their father died, Five showed up, the world ended twice over, and now Diego was pushing open the front door of his childhood home on a Tuesday morning like it was normal. 

It had been nice to step away from the briefcase into a manor that was not only standing, but had no signs of the damage it had endured. The chandelier once again hung over the entrance. The bullet holes that had littered the walls after those Commission assholes had attacked were gone, wiped from the house entirely. Having the Academy intact and without their asshole of a father inhabiting it had definitely made it easier to spend a night or two there with the rest of the family. He’d spent nearly two days in the cavernous old home, occupying his time with filling the old man’s portrait over the fireplace with knives or encouraging Klaus in replacing all the old Umbrella Academy portraits with tacky art instead.

And he had spent time with Mom, of course. Seeing her alive again had made the bullshit in ‘63 worth it. 

(Almost made it easier to lose someone else he cared for, but he wasn’t going to think about that. Just keep Lila out of his head and move on.)

It was early enough today that he knew Mom would be preparing breakfast - and she’d be in the basement kitchen doing it. For those two days he had been here, the six of them had sat down around that old table in the basement rather than the formal dining table on the ground floor. That was alright with Diego; he’d like to never step foot in that formal ass room again. 

Diego passed through the living room, heading for the stairs down. He caught sight of Allison sitting on a chair below Five’s portrait, sipping at a mug of steaming coffee. She still wore a robe over pajamas and he paused. 

Allison caught his eye and pulled the mug from her lips. “Mm, I wouldn’t go down there,” she said, shaking her head. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun at the base of her skull, loose locks framing her face. 

Diego thumbed at one of the knives strapped to his thigh. “Yeah? Why not?” 

“Five’s throwing a tantrum,” she said. 

He cast a glance at the stairwell then back to her. “How is that any different than usual? Five’s always pissed about something.” 

Allison was silent for a moment, looking intently at the mug in her hands. “Luther used the last of the coffee to make this,” she said finally, holding it up in his direction. 

Diego sighed. 

“And apparently we’re out of bread, which he’s taken to mean we’re all mentally deficient or something.” She shrugged, taking another sip as Diego took a seat on the couch. “He was in the middle of yelling at Luther when I left and I’m not going near there until he’s gone.” 

They were silent for a few seconds, Diego trying to pick up any noise from downstairs. He thought he could just make out the grating, insulting twist that accompanied all of Five’s pissy little rants but had no way to tell for sure. “Seems like a lot of trouble over bread and coffee. Even for him.” 

“You’re more than welcome to check it out for yourself,” Allison said. He decided he was just fine where he was and leaned back into the couch, folding his hands over his stomach. He let his eyes wander over the open room, flicking from one mounted animal head to the next and idly wondered when Klaus was going to make good on his promise of removing them. Shit, maybe Diego could help him do that today. Wasn’t like he had a lot to do. 

After a couple minutes, the silence was sliced open by the telltale sound of one of Five’s teleports. And then Five himself, stalking through the room, ranting under his breath a string of insults. He didn’t look at the other two in the room, may not have even noticed they were there. As usual, he wore the Academy uniform except it had been stripped down to the white button up, as if Five had stopped in the middle of getting ready to fetch a cup of coffee. Diego waited until he went through the door with a growl of “Fucking  _ idiots _ ,” before turning back to Allison. 

She now sat with her feet curled onto the chair, her eyes still gazing at where Five had been. When she did look at him, it was with raised eyebrows and an ‘I told you so’ expression. 

“Think he killed Luther?” Diego asked her. The only response he got was a short laugh, Allison looking away again. They sat in silence for a few seconds longer and then Diego got to his feet. No point in hanging around in here if the threat had passed. He left the living room without another word to his sister, taking the stairs down to the kitchen. 

Downstairs, there was a pair of empty plates still sitting on the table along with a coffee mug laying on its side. Luther stood at one end of the table, already dressed and frowning at Klaus, the only other person in the room. It was safe to assume Luther had aimed to look authoritative, but he just looked dejected. Like a giant kicked puppy. Klaus held a glass that was hopefully filled with water and not vodka, gesturing at Luther as he talked. 

“I would have hated to interrupt our littlest brother,” Klaus was saying. 

Luther’s face twisted more than it already was. “You were hiding,” he said. 

“I was observing.” 

Diego rolled his eyes. He said, “Hey,” just to get their attention. “Where’s Mom?” 

“Upstairs,” Luther said. “Pogo said there’s more food to cook with up there.” 

“I think she heard Five screaming,” Klaus said, taking a drink from his glass, “and just bailed. And really, who would blame her? He was really going for a while there.” 

“You could have helped stop him,” Luther snapped. He was frowning so hard now he looked constipated. 

Klaus shook his head. “And willingly put myself in front of an angry Five?” 

Since Mom was upstairs, there was no longer a need for Diego to be down here. But, he was curious.. “What the hell was that even about?” he asked. Both brothers looked his way. “With Five.” 

“He’s just mad that we’re out of coffee,” Luther started. 

“I think he’s mad that we’re out of everything,” Klaus injected. 

Luther sighed. “Yeah… or - or that.” 

Diego stared at them. “You’re out of everything,” he repeated. 

“Yeah,” Klaus said. He waved his free hand at the kitchen cabinets next to him, smiling. “Kitchen’s empty.” 

This wasn’t Diego’s business, really. He didn’t even live here. Nothing could stop him from just turning around and leaving without another word to his brothers. And yet, he stood there and stared at them with enough judgement that they should be able to feel how stupid he found them. He said, “Then go grocery shopping. It isn’t that hard.” 

Go shopping, and Five wouldn’t be biting people’s heads off early in the morning. 

Go shopping, and Mom would be cooking here instead of upstairs in that stuffy ass formal dining room. 

Luther said, “I’m getting around to it!”

Klaus said, “I can’t drive,” which Diego was pretty sure was a lie at this point. Had Klaus been in the sixties long enough to learn to drive? He was about to ask when Klaus clarified- “Legally. I can’t drive  _ legally. _ ” 

“Five can’t drive legally,” Luther said. “Doesn’t stop him.” 

Klaus made a face at Luther, smothering his retort in the glass. 

Diego muttered, “Jesus Christ,” under his breath. If he left this to these two idiots, nothing would ever get done. And as easy as it was to blame it on both of them being incompetent, he knew otherwise. For the longest time, Luther had never left this damn Academy, had relied on Dad and Pogo and Mom to take care of everything for him. Most of his life was spent without worrying about money or where his next meal was coming from - and maybe some of that had changed during Luther’s own stint in the sixties, but as far as Diego could tell, he hadn’t changed that much. 

As for Klaus… Well. 

Klaus was Klaus. Even if he did take the car and go grocery shopping, Diego was positive Klaus wouldn’t stick to a list. The Academy would end up stocked with junk food and alcohol before anything healthy. 

That left, what? Allison, who was leaving in a day or two anyway? Five? Hell, Diego had maybe seen Five eat two or three times since he showed up again and had no idea what the hell Five classified as good enough to buy. 

So, really, Diego wasn’t to blame here. It was someone else’s fault entirely that, despite the fact that he didn’t live here and had his own life, Diego offered to do the shopping for the house. As soon as the words left his mouth, Luther’s face brightened and he started going on about a list he had, one that he had left upstairs in his room. He was moving through the room with all the grace of a horse with two broken legs, knocking into a chair so hard it nearly fell over. Before he even started up the stairs, Klaus had drained his glass. 

He smiled, said, “That gives me time to get ready,” and patted Diego on the shoulder as he passed. 

Alone in the kitchen now, Diego stared down at the knocked over coffee cup and absolutely did not smile at his brothers’ stupidity. Buying food for grown men should not make them that happy, he was sure of that. Before he left the room, Diego reached over to right the cup.

Back upstairs, the living room was empty now. He passed through, heading across the entrance rather than going straight upstairs. A door closed upstairs, the noise echoing through the empty part of the house as Diego pushed the dining room’s door open. The face he made was entirely involuntary, a downward turn of his lips as he forced his attention away from the large table they had sat at for every meal as children. 

Just as Luther had said, he found Mom working over the stove at the kitchen up here. It was separated from the dining room by another sliding door. While the appliances here were more updated and there was more cabinet and counter space, the room lacked the comfortable lived-in atmosphere downstairs. It felt more like a hospital or a pristine high-class restaurant than a home. 

At the sound of the door open, Mom had raised her head and in a second, she had fixed Diego with a warm smile. She drew back from the stove, wiping her hands on her apron. “Diego,” she said. “It’s been a couple days, hasn’t it?” 

“Yeah, well… You know how it is.” Did she, though? Mom still spent every day in this damn place. “Got busy.” 

“As long as you’re keeping safe,” she said. Her eyes took on a knowing glint that had Diego backtracking through their recent conversations. He didn’t think she knew about the vigilante work during the nights, especially when he hadn’t picked up the habit until a few days ago. “Are you staying for breakfast?”

“You found something to make?” He cast a look around the kitchen. The counters were barren but clean and shining. A couple dirty dishes were in the sink. “Klaus said you guys were out of food.” 

She tutted under her breath, smiling softly. “Oh, I managed to find enough.” She paused and the smile fell just a bit. “He isn’t wrong, though. We’ve only got enough to make a handful of biscuits for all of you. I was hoping to convince one of your brothers to go shopping today.” 

“Well,” Diego started, spreading his hands, “that’s what I’m here for. Shopping.” He neglected to mention that he was only going because he didn’t trust the others to do it right. “There anything you need while I’m out?” 

Mom’s smile had brightened again. She patted his arm with one hand. “Oh, no, dear. I’ve already gone over what we need with Luther. He should have a -” 

“A list,” Diego finished. “Yeah. He said something about that.” And Diego should probably head upstairs to get the damn thing, maybe hurry Klaus along before he was stuck waiting for his brother to take a bath or something. Before he left, he extended the offer to Mom to come with them. 

As he expected, she turned him down. Said there were things here to take care of. He left her there with a promise that of course he’d stay for a meal when they got back, and then Diego took the side exit of the kitchen. 

There was a flight of stairs just past the kitchen, one that led downstairs as well as up, continuing through the second floor and up to the third. At the second floor, Diego paused to knock on Klaus’s door and yell through, “Hurry up. I’m not waiting for you.” Whatever answer he got back was so muffled he didn’t try to decipher it. Instead, he headed to Luther’s room at the end of the hall. 

The door to his brother’s room was open, Luther staring down a notebook in his hand. He glanced up at the sound of Diego’s footfalls, and a few seconds later, Diego held a multi-page grocery list. Diego furrowed his brow as he looked over the first page - it was just a bunch of snack food; who the hell wanted these? - and then looked back at Luther. “You gonna join?” he asked. 

Luther’s smile took on that fake as hell quality. “Uh. Sorry. Can’t.” He didn’t even bother to come up with an excuse before shutting the door in Diego’s face. His call of “Have fun with Klaus!” made it through the wooden door. 

Diego cursed the giant idiot under his breath, folding the pages of the list up and stuffing it into his pocket. Shopping for his brothers was bad enough as it was. Knowing that his only company was going to be Klaus, the worst possible person to take into a store, was not helping. The more minutes that passed, the more Diego was certain that he needed someone else to help keep Klaus from filling the car with junk. Or to keep Klaus from stealing everything he got his hands on. Or to keep Klaus from using the entire shopping trip to go buy more absurd clothes over food. He eyed Allison’s door before taking the few steps over to it and knocking on it. 

There was a muffled response from her - “One second!” - and Diego slid a knife from its holster as he waited. He turned the blade over in his fingers, considered the fact that he should probably not wear the tactical gear into a store, and then the door was swinging open. 

Allison still wore her robe, but at least she had switched her pajama pants for a pair of jeans instead. “Hey,” she said. “Did you need something?” 

“Yeah, me and Klaus are goin’ grocery shopping,” Diego said. “Come with us.” 

Allison hesitated. 

Diego frowned. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. “I’ve gotta pack. Flight’s tomorrow.” 

“That’s more than enough time to go to the store,” Diego said. 

Allison shook her head, trying to close the door. The fake smile she wore faded when Diego shoved his foot in between the door and the frame. “I’m not going,” she said. “Ask someone else.” 

“Luther won’t go either.” 

“Then take Mom.”

“Nope.” 

Allison rolled her eyes, wrenching her door open completely. She turned from it to head back into her room, leaving Diego to lean against the door and watch. There was a suitcase sitting open on her bed. “I don’t care if you take Pogo,” she said. “But I'm not going with you.” 

While Pogo would be much better at shopping than Klaus, Diego was not going to take a reclusive super intelligent chimpanzee into the public eye. “C’mon,” he said, aiming for charming and falling short. 

Allison shot him an unamused look as she folded a shirt neatly into the suitcase. “Why do you even want me to go?” 

He paused for a second too long and Allison straightened up, a hand on her hip. Diego heaved a breath and gestured back down the hall with one hand. “You know how Klaus is,” he said. “If it’s just me and him, I won’t be able to keep an eye on how much shit he’s throwing in the cart.” 

Watching Allison’s suspicious gaze transform into a grin was unnerving. “So you just don’t want to buy everything Klaus wants,” she said. 

“Klaus wants to buy unhealthy bullshit,” Diego corrected, pointing his knife in her direction. “I need someone who will help keep his ass in line.” He flipped the knife over again, running his thumb down its sharp edge. “Maybe I’ll pick up Vanya.” 

“Don’t bother,” Allison said. “She’s got practice with the orchestra.” She was still grinning. “There is one person you haven’t bothered yet.” 

Diego met her gaze, eyes narrowing. “Who.” 

“Five.” 

He slid the knife back into its spot, straightening up. “Alright, good talk,” he said. “Guess I’m going with Klaus then.” 

“Oh, take Five,” Allison said. She bent down to pick up a pair of shoes and started fitting them into the suitcase as well. “He needs to get out of here anyway.” 

“You know the mood he’s in,” Diego said. “I’m not bothering Five.” 

Allison smiled at him. “Course you’re not.” 

Of course, Diego was climbing the stairs to the third floor not even five minutes later. Against every rational bone in his body, Diego was going to invite his last remaining sibling to come shopping in order to hopefully out number Klaus’s absurd purchases. Just like he’d done with Allison and Luther, only this time he may get more than a door shut in his face. And this time, he had Klaus at his heels. 

The third floor was definitely one of Diego’s least favorite places in the house. The attic was creepy enough, but without the original occupants, it had been dismal and far too quiet for half his childhood. At least now he could pretend one of the empty rooms wasn’t there and still have a brother to focus on. Today, Five’s door stood open which made it a lot easier to ascend the stairs without looking at the emptiness that had once been Ben’s room. 

The writing scrawled on Five’s walls caught Diego’s attention first then he dropped his eyes to the numerous rumbled sheets of paper littering the floor and the desk. An empty bottle of water stood on one corner of the desk, another under the desk, and pens were scattered among the papers. The area around the desk was the worst, but some of the papers had reached further into the room.

Diego considered The mess briefly and exchanged a glance with Klaus, but all that earned him was Klaus shoving him through Five’s doorway. He stumbled, hit the door into the wall, and gave Klaus a scathing glare before focusing on his other brother. 

Five stood at his mirror, once again having donned the entirety of the Umbrella Academy uniform. He had his hands at his tie, not even looking as he readjusted it. He stared at Diego and at Klaus, eyes hardened enough to light fires under their feet. “What do you want?’ he said. 

Before Diego could answer, Klaus said, “Wow. I love what you’ve done with the place.” He was gazing at the messy floor with a bemused smile, ignoring the extra spite flooding into Five’s eyes.

“Klaus,” Diego muttered, “shut up.” From where he stood, they had about two seconds before Five either killed them or vanished. Louder, he said, “We’re going grocery shopping. Come with.” 

Some of the fight left Five with a short huff of laughter. He didn’t bother answering, just shook his head and turned his attention back to the mirror. 

“I’m serious,” Diego said. 

“I have important things to take care of,” Five said. 

Diego looked back down at the papers littering the floor. He glanced around the room quickly, taking in the stack of books sitting in the old armchair and the series of old coffee cups standing on the dresser. The bed was the only clean surface in the room, well made with the blankets pulled into place so neatly it looked crisp. “Yeah,” Diego said. “Does it involve cleaning this mess?”

Five shot him an unamused look. “Actually, Diego, it involves - “

Klaus cut him off. “We’ll get you coffee if you come.” 

At that, Five was silent. He looked between the two of them as he smoothed the vest of his uniform down. Without a word, he took a step and vanished before his foot hit the ground. The room felt smaller without Five in it, quieter somehow. Diego shared another look with Klaus and then the two of them were heading back downstairs. 

Without Five’s cutting remarks, Diego was left to entertain whatever came out of Klaus’s mouth first. Today his subject of choice was actually their brother. 

“You ever wonder what he’s up to?” Klaus asked. “I swear, he shut himself in his room yesterday and didn’t come out once.”

“He can teleport,” Diego said dryly. “You probably didn’t notice him leaving.” He was mulling over the trip ahead of him, wondering how the hell he’d get anything done without someone else to distract Klaus. Maybe he could bribe Klaus just like Klaus had tried to do with Five. 

Except that by the time the two of them made it outside to Diego’s car, they were greeted with the sight of Five sitting behind the wheel. He fixed Diego with an impatient stare, one that got worse as Diego rounded the car to the sound of Klaus’s light laughter. As soon as Diego wrenched the door open, Five said, “Took you long enough. Get in.” He jerked his head in the direction of the passenger side. 

Diego shook his head. “You didn’t say a damn thing about coming,” he said. “And I’m driving.” 

“I drive better than you,” Five said instantly. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. 

“Yeah, well, I’m the only one whose gone through puberty.” He motioned for Five to move over. “Move it, short stack.” 

Klaus had already climbed into the back seat. He leaned forward as Diego pushed Five over, arms crossed over the seat. “In his defense,” he said, meaning Five, “he kinda did already go through puberty.” 

Smirking, Five waved a hand at Klaus. 

Diego just rolled his eyes, starting the car with a twist of the key. 

“God, that must’ve sucked,” Klaus continued. “Going through puberty in an apocalypse.” He shuddered. When neither Five nor Diego said anything, he hummed quietly to himself for a few seconds and only moved back when Diego barked for him to put on a seatbelt - Five too, actually, since the little shit had decided to forego the basics of protection. They hadn’t even pulled into the road before Klaus spoke again. “Hey, how horrible was it to get awkward boners in the apocalypse?” 

Diego blinked, eyeing Klaus in the rearview mirror. He was looking right at Five, waiting as if he was actually going to get an answer. Then Diego looked at Five and snorted. 

Whereas Diego was surprised, Five looked positively gobsmacked. As Diego watched, he sighed, turned his gaze upward as if in prayer, and then turned slowly to point the most disappointing stare in Klaus’s direction. He only uttered one word: “What.” 

“No judgment here, little bro,” Klaus said with a wide smile. “We’ve all been through it.” 

“Don’t call me little,” Five said. “And think before you speak next time.” He started to turn back around, fidgeting in his seat. 

“Aw, c’mon, Five! Tell me a story and I’ll tell you one of mine.” 

“I’m not talking about this.” 

Diego had pulled into the road by now. “Didn’t you get one in front of Pogo once?” He only said it because he knew Klaus would immediately launch into the story and Five’s glare was growing more uncomfortable by the second. The look Five gave him was nothing short of betrayal and Diego had to try very hard not to burst into laughter. 

✦✦✦✦✦

Grocery shopping with his brothers was definitely going down as something Diego was not doing again. As he’d expected, Klaus had taken off and left him with the cart nearly immediately upon entering the store. He wasn’t surprised that Five was annoyed with him either, especially since, as Five put it, “A grocery store is not getting me coffee. I expected to have it to drink, Diego, not to have to buy the grounds myself.” 

Diego had said, “Just go pick out the coffee you want and shut up,” and then Five had left him too. 

Which meant Diego was essentially shopping by himself. Not a surprise. He took his time in looking over Luther’s list before starting and mentally crossed off a lot of the more unhealthy and unnecessary options. Really, his brothers needed to start eating like adults and not children with an unlimited allowance and no self control. The amount of junk food on the list was ridiculous and only rivaled by the shit Klaus tried to drop off. He’d find Diego every couple aisles with an armful of snack cakes and cookies, chips and store brand salsas with ingredients that didn’t even look like real words. And every time he left, Diego would go through all of it and put more than half on the shelf again before continuing. 

What Diego didn’t expect was for Five to be even less help than Klaus. Not only did the old man not bother to help corral Klaus, he came by once with a bag of coffee grounds that cost more than coffee had any right to and refused to take it back. “I’m not made of money, Five,” Diego said. “Get something less expensive.” 

Five leaned over the cart to lower his voice, dropping the bag into the half full cart as he hissed out, “Either you’re buying it or I’m taking it anyway.” Then he stalked off again. Diego had considered just tossing the expensive shit aside with Klaus’s last attempts at snack food, but decided against it. Dying from a caffeine deprived Five was not something he wanted to do today. 

Technically, neither was shopping for a house he wasn’t even staying at, but whatever. 

The next time Klaus found him, he dropped another armful of snack cakes into the cart before fixing Diego with a wane smile. “Let’s not dump all these in the aisle for some poor employee to clean up,” he said. “These are the good ones.” 

“I haven’t dumped anything in the aisles,” Diego said slowly. “Klaus. Did you drop shit in the aisles?” 

“I would never.” Klaus reached into the cart and pulled out a box, showing it to Diego. “Look! Twinkies. Who doesn’t like Twinkies?” 

“Anyone who cares about their bodies.” It was the third box of the damn things Diego would have set aside. 

Five had rejoined them without Diego even seeing him walk up. He made a face and reached over to take the box away from Klaus. “Absolutely not,” he said, setting them on a shelf. “Pick something else.”

“Diego keeps putting them all back!” Klaus said, pointing an offending finger at Diego. “And I like Twinkies, so I’m getting them.”

Five said, “No,” in a tone that promised no arguments. 

“You’re not the only one living in the house,” Klaus said. 

“But I am the only one whose eaten a rotten Twinkie before. We’re not having those things in the Academy.” 

“What if I keep them in my room?”

“No, Klaus.” 

Diego pushed the cart around them, letting them argue about junk food. He had reached the part of the list that had clearly been dictated by Mom. Several spices, nonstick sprays for the pans, ingredients for homemade pastries. Batter for pancakes. Eggs. Actual healthy items - real vegetables, even. Luther had made it a point to jot a note for himself to pick out fresh vegetables and Diego was just a little judgmental that such a thing had to be written down in the first place. At least one of his brothers was trying, though. 

He wasn’t sure how long Five and Klaus had argued over Twinkies, but by the time Klaus came up to him again, Diego was looking over heads of lettuce in the produce aisle. He took one look at Klaus and rolled his eyes. “Alright. What the hell is that?”

All Klaus held was a single jar of salsa but he was grinning so widely it couldn’t be good news. “We need this,” he said. “I know you’ve been putting all my stuff back, but I’ll forgive you if you buy me this.” He turned it so the label was visible and giggled. “Look at it! It’s perfect.”

Diego took one look at the jar and then back up at Klaus. “Are you kidding me right now? Is this a joke?” 

“I bet you taste delicious.” 

Somehow, Klaus had found a jar labeled ‘diego salsa’ and he was holding it as if it were made of gold. Diego wanted to throw the damn jar against the wall. “Do you even know what that is?”

Klaus paused, looking down at it and back up again. “Salsa.” 

“No shit.” He reached out to grasp Klaus’s arm, stopping him from placing the jar into the cart. “What are you even gonna make with that?”

Klaus shrugged with the arm not in Diego’s grasp. “I don’t know. Mom will figure something out.” 

“Can I at least see the ingredients in that stupid shit?” 

“It’s not nice to call yourself names, Diego.” 

“Give me the fuckin’ jar.” 

“Are you buying it? Or am I stealing it along with more of Five’s coffee?”

“You shouldn’t be stealing anything.” Diego let him go then, sighing. “Why are you stealing coffee? There’s already a bag of that expensive shit in here.” He gestured to the pile of groceries in the cart. 

Klaus placed the jar of salsa down carefully. “Eh, he said something about wanting two but you were being a baby about it. So I told him I’d take care of it, no problem.” 

There was certainly a problem with that and Diego needed a moment to search for the right words to get that across to someone like Klaus. Before he could even start, his train of thought was derailed by someone calling his name. A very familiar voice that had Diego turning to confirm that, yeah, that was exactly who he thought. 

Currently staring at him like he’d sprouted a second head stood Eudora Patch. She held a shopping basket in one hand, hair tied back and badge hanging around her neck like always. She tilted her head a bit, glancing to Klaus before focusing back on Diego. “Thought that was you,” she said, moving closer. “It was a bit hard to tell with the, uh… the hair?” 

Diego just stood there, staring at her. It had been, what? A couple months since he had seen her last? And even then, they had pulled Klaus from a hotel room only to lose him again immediately afterward; Five had been drunk, there was an apocalypse, and if Diego’s memory served him right, it was around that time they had gone looking for Vanya and her serial killer boyfriend. He had been just a bit distracted even before the sixties to check up on how she was doing. 

And now his brain didn’t want to fire the correct cylinders for him to be able to speak. He was aware of Klaus shuffling around in the cart next to him, of Eudora waiting for him to say anything. 

After a few painful seconds, she took pity on him and continued. “I know it’s been a week or so since we last spoke-” 

Oh Jesus. It had only been a week for her? 

Time travel was fucking wild. 

“- but I’m pretty sure hair doesn’t grow that fast,” she was saying. “Is that, like, a Hargreeves family trait? Or another weird super power of yours?” 

Her words finally started to sink in and Diego reached up to tug at his hair, frowning. When he’d left, the sides were shaved down. Must be a big difference for her. He started to talk, but all that came up was, “Uh… well. Uhm.” 

Eudora looked mildly amused. “Trying something new?” she suggested.

He nodded lamely. 

Klaus’s voice was a sudden and not unwelcome intrusion. At this point, Diego would gratefully accept any ridiculous thing from Klaus if it got him out of this situation. “Oh, it’s extensions,” he said. 

Never mind. 

“Extensions,” he repeated, pitching his voice lower as he spoke to Klaus. “Really?”

“You were floundering,” Klaus whispered back. “It was embarrassing.” 

“I had it under control,” Diego hissed. 

“No. No, you really didn’t.” 

Eudora said, “Never would have pegged you for the hair extension type.” 

Again, Diego failed to come up with anything. 

Klaus, however, was always an expert at pulling shit out of thin air. “I convinced him to do it.” He raised one hand to try and curl a finger into Diego’s hair only to be swatted away immediately. “I was having a tough time, and Diego is such a good brother. Sometimes.” He went on about a bad breakup, hand to his chest in a dramatic fashion, but Diego was already tuning him out. 

Eudora was watching Klaus with a polite smile on her face. She caught Diego’s eye shortly though. Brows raised, she said, “Your brother?” with a gesture at Klaus. 

He nodded. “One of them, anyway.” 

“Which of the, uh.. Costumed kids was he?” she asked. 

Diego looked back to his brother. Sensing his part in the conversation was done, Klaus had meandered away, poking at fruits on a display. He didn’t particularly want to dump his family’s business on anyone, but it was Eudora. She’d already put up with him when they’d dated, had suffered through enough of his sour moods about the Hargreeves family and his past. He took a moment to think, and all he ended up saying was, “Ghosts.” 

She nodded, not asking for anything else. Shit, she may not even know much else. She hadn’t really bothered to ask him about the Academy and for all he knew, Eudora’s knowledge of that whole thing was minimal. 

So instead of asking about his brother - which was nice of her, since Diego could already hear Klaus muttering to the seemingly empty air beside him - she turned everything back to him. “Are you alright?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him. “You’re acting weirder than normal.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Don’t give me that,” Eudora said. “I haven’t seen you for a week, and you show up with long hair and stare at me like you’ve seen a damn ghost. What’s going on, Diego?”

He hesitated for a moment before reinforcing Klaus’s lie about extensions. Eudora didn’t look impressed, so he added, “Look, it’s… It’s been a weird time lately.” If only she knew. “Got some family shit going on right now.” 

“Family shit,” Eudora repeated. 

He nodded. “Yeah. Reconnecting with them all, you know how it is.” 

Rather than respond to that, Eudora’s gaze flicked to the cart then back to him. “There’s a kid in your food,” she said.

Diego blinked, surprised at the sudden change of subject, and turned back. He rolled his eyes at the sight. “Not a kid,” he muttered to her. “Another brother.” He missed the way her face scrunched up in disbelief, too busy leaning over the cart to Five. 

It had taken the bastard a few minutes longer than Klaus to return, but Five stood there now, dropping box after box of snack cakes into the cart. Boxes that Diego was sure he’d tossed out earlier. The boxes were piled on top of what looked like an entire display box of canned vegetables, and Diego watched Five shove that into the cart as well. He still held more things in his hands: a clear plastic container of bakery fresh cake slices and three candy bars. 

“Hey,” Diego snapped, waiting for Five to look up at him. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Klaus and I reached an agreement on the snacks,” Five said. “No Twinkies, but he can have some of these disgusting Hostess snacks provided I got to choose the flavor of the cake.” The cake sitting in Five’s hands was chocolate marble and he added it to the top of the cart.

“Who said either of you could have this shit?” Diego said. “Why do you even need cake? Mom can make whatever you ask for.” 

Five looked thoughtful for a moment, toying with the wrapper of one of the candy bars in his hand. “It’s more the principle of it, I think,” he said finally. “And it got Klaus to shut up about Twinkies, so I’ll take it.” 

Diego could only heave a long suffering sigh and ask himself why he thought bringing Five along would be any better than just taking Klaus. Five never listened to him. Of course he’d want to buy a lot of bullshit. Weakly, he said, “Is there a good reason for the canned veggies?”

Five said, “They last longer than the fresh stuff.” He gave Diego a brief exploratory look and added, “It’s just vegetables, Diego.” 

“And cake.”

“Sure. And cake.” Now Five was speaking to him like he was an ill-behaved child, which was fucking outrageous. If anyone was the child here, it was the one who was literally a teenager. “Pull yourself together, Diego,” Five said. “You look like you’re going to shit yourself.” 

Diego gave him an unamused frown but Five was already walking over to Klaus, where he plucked an apple from their brother’s hand to put it back with the others. 

Behind him, he could hear Eudora laughing quietly. When he looked back to her, her gaze was on Five and Klaus. “You have a strange family,” she said, finally dragging her eyes back to Diego. “Did you take the kid out of school to go shopping?”

His frown deepened. “Sorry. What?” 

“Your brother,” she said. “He should be in school right now, shouldn’t he?” 

Diego said nothing. He hadn’t quite gotten over seeing Eudora again so suddenly, his mind still playing catch up. 

The amusement in Eudora’s eyes was fading very quickly, her smile disappearing as she leveled a disapproving stare at him. “Oh, he better be in school, Diego,” she said quietly. “You cannot tell me he’s not when he is literally wearing a school uniform.” 

Diego turned to look back at Five, eyes darting up and down his brother. It hit him slowly, like bricks crumbling one by one, that Eudora saw a child. An actual child, not a twisted up time-traveling assassin stuffed into a child’s body. He looked back at her and hoped he looked normal, like what she was saying wasn’t steadily imploding his mind. “Course he is,” he said. “Who do you think I am?”

Eudora’s gaze didn’t lighten up a bit. “Then why is he here?” she asked. “On a Tuesday. When he should be in class.”

He spat out the first thing he thought of: “He- He’s homeschooled.” He nodded when her eyes only narrowed. “Yep. Homeschooled. Just takin’ a break to buy food for the house.” 

Eudora’s eyes flickered from Diego back to Five. “Uh huh,” she said. “And who teaches him? You?”

“No. Hell no.” Knowing she wanted an answer, he added, “Mom does.” 

That was believable. Even if Pogo had done more of the teaching when Diego was a child, it made complete sense for a kid’s mom to teach him. Eudora seemed to be buying it too. But Diego didn’t really get a chance to confirm that because when he looked back at his brothers, he jolted forward with a snarl. 

“Hey! Idiots!”

Klaus was still holding apples, a different colored one in each hand, and he looked up in alarm. Diego ignored him because what was more important was that Five stood at Klaus’s side, unwrapping one of those damned candy bars. The other two he’d held had vanished to god knows where. “Five,” Diego snapped when he got closer, “what the hell are you doing?”

Five opted to take a bite of the chocolate bar instead of answering. 

Diego swiped for it, missing when Five stepped back. “You know we have to pay for that!” He made a grab for Five, glaring when the jackass just slid behind Klaus. “You little prick,” Diego growled.

Five leaned against the display of apples, smirking at him. “Why don’t you finish your conversation?” he said. “I’ll meet you guys at home.” And then he walked off, disappearing as he rounded the edge of the nearest aisle. Diego could just make out the flash of blue as he teleported away. 

Klaus was laughing. 

Diego shot him a glare. 

Somewhere behind him, Eudora was waiting to keep talking. If it wasn’t going to be about Diego’s younger brother, he’d be surprised. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a very serious fic in case you can't tell. very serious. 
> 
> here's some facts:  
> 1\. yo idk what the fuck 'diego salsa' is, but i found a quesadilla meal kit at my grocery store once and it was advertised as having diego salsa in it. far as i could find out, its probably just a salsa made in san diego but they shorthanded it and it became hilarious to me. it is now a thing in TUA universe ok.   
> 2\. so far as Eudora Patch is concerned, she just straight up didn't die in the previous 2019 - so Cha-Cha didn't shoot her, there was no dead girl for Diego to find. what does that mean for her existence in this new 2019? we'll get there some day. 
> 
> thank you for reading  
> see ya next time bye bye


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a hargreeves family meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the white parts of my shoes are stained blue and I’m not sure what to do about this
> 
> massive thanks to space wife yet again for dragging my ass to finish this

This day was turning into one mess after another. Now that the grocery shopping was finished - and Diego had made a stop at Griddy’s purely to shut Klaus up about doughnuts - the family was supposed to sit down for lunch. Except Five was conveniently not there, Klaus was asleep on the living room couch, and Allison had left to join Vanya for lunch instead. Which left Diego with just Luther and Pogo while Mom cleaned up the dishes. 

He sat there, uncomfortably tense for ten minutes before Pogo left and he could turn to Luther and tell him exactly what Eudora had done. The things she had said after Five had left hinted at trouble for all of them, and Diego had more or less invited her over. 

Luther leaned over his plate, voice pitched low as if anyone else were there to hear him. “Why did you tell her she could visit?” 

“She said she was curious,” Diego hissed back. “And she wasn’t gonna take no for an answer.” 

Luther squinted, tilted his head as he thought. “How does being curious mean she wanted to come over?”

“Trust me, if you knew her, you’d get it,” Diego said. “There’s this look she gives, where if I say no, she’d show up anyway.” He stabbed a piece of pork and shrugged. “At least this way, we got time to prepare. Can get all our shit figured out before she gets here.” 

“That’s a good point,” Luther said. He pointed his own fork to Diego, gravy sliding off it and hitting the plate with a quiet splat. “Family meeting time?”

Diego nodded slowly. “Family meeting.”

“Leave Vanya a message. I’ll make sure Five actually leaves his room.” 

Diego paused to chew a bite of porkchop then said. “You guys know he can teleport, right? You don’t really have to see him leaving for him to leave.” 

Luther’s thoughtful expression turned sour. “Can we focus?” 

They split after lunch was finished, Diego heading to the nearest phone. It wasn’t likely that Vanya was home yet which meant he’d have to leave her a message. He left her two - one that said it wasn’t world-ending important, but she needed to get back to the Academy ASAP. The second one was five minutes after the first and consisted of Diego saying things like, “Get the hell here now, Vanya,” and “It’s about Five. Hurry up.” 

Maybe he could have done better about explaining what was going on, but it was too late now. As long as she showed up, it was fine. He hung around the same place for a while, watching but not helping as Luther talked to Klaus - and then, when the phone rang, Diego lunged for it. In the end, they agreed to meet before dinner that night. Had to be tonight because, as Allison reminded them when she came back, her flight was tomorrow morning. Vanya would stop by as soon as her lessons ended for today, and if the whole thing didn’t go to shit, they could have dinner. 

But that was an unrealistic goal for this family. Get the Hargreeves siblings in one room and, even if they were after the same thing, it always disintegrated into chaos. 

Tonight was no exception. Diego met Luther in the living room, Klaus trailing behind him at a leisurely pace. Out of all of them, Klaus had taken the least convincing. He already knew most of it, having provided his own input into Diego’s conversation with Eudora, and could have skipped the damn thing altogether. 

Not too long after, Allison had hurried downstairs, demanding answers before she’d even made it through the doorway. 

“We need to wait for Five,” Luther said. 

Already seated on one of the couches, Klaus laughed. “He’s gonna hate this.” 

“We still have to wait for him.” Luther had sworn he’d gotten Five to agree to this, so Diego was hoping the bastard had simply lost track of time. 

Then Vanya arrived. The front door shutting announced her presence moments before she called out to them. She settled next to Allison on the couch, taking the seat closest to the door. "What's this about?" she asked, looking at Diego and Luther curiously.

“We aren’t allowed to know yet,” Allison told her. She held a glass of alcohol, poured for her by Klaus mere moments ago. “Have to wait for Five.”

Vanya said, “Oh. Okay.” 

“And he’s late,” Allison continued. The smile on her face was forced, leaking irritation with every word. 

Klaus offered Vanya a drink as he had done for everyone else, shrugging when she denied. He patted her softly on the head as he passed, then lounged back into one of the chairs by the fire. He drank from his own glass, then looked up. “Does it count if that’s here?” he asked, pointing to the portrait of the brother in question. 

Diego sighed, rubbing at his temple with one hand. “Klaus,” he said. “You know why Five has to be here. Shut up.” 

“He can be here in spirit,” Klaus said. 

“You really want to drop this shit on him?” Diego said. 

“Surprising Five is not the best idea,” Luther added. He sat next to Diego on the couch across from their sisters, tapping his fingers on his knees impatiently. “Especially not with… this.” 

Quietly, Vanya said to Allison, “Klaus knows?”

Allison hummed in agreement, taking a long swallow of her drink. 

“Klaus was eavesdropping on a private conversation,” Diego said. 

“I was not,” Klaus said, frowning at Diego. “She started asking when I was right next to you.” 

“And you didn’t help shut it down,” Diego snapped back. “Now we gotta have this meeting or -” He paused, Allison’s eyes flicking to his, her brows raising. “Or we’re fucked,” he finished. He smirked when irritation bloomed fresh over Allison’s face, but it was short-lived. This was dangerous territory they were headed into and not the kind of danger he was used to. 

Another handful of minutes passed before Five bothered to show himself. In that short time, Klaus had handed out drinks to everyone and refilled his and Allison’s glasses; both Allison and Vanya had tried to get Diego to just start the damn meeting already, tell them what was happening; and Diego had had to physically stop Luther from spilling it to Allison by slapping his hand over his brother’s mouth and giving him one hell of a dirty look. 

A family meeting meant waiting for the entire family. When Five finally came downstairs, walking through the door with only a brief look to the rest of them, it was a relief. He said, “This had better be important,” and headed straight for the bar. 

“It is,” Luther said. He shot Diego a glance that meant he was not responsible for this. Diego started the mess, Diego’s meeting. 

Finally in charge of something, and it was only going to piss Five off. Great. 

That brief moment of relief was gone, apprehension seeping in to take its place. “Right. Yeah.” Diego faltered, thinking over how best to approach this. He looked at his siblings in turn and for a moment, the only sound was the clinking of glass as Five poured himself a drink. “So earlier today, I ran into Eudora, and - “

“Wait,” Vanya interrupted. “Sorry, but… who?” 

“Eudora Patch,” Diego said. “She’s a detective. A friend.” 

“Ex-girlfriend,” Klaus offered. He smiled and winked when Diego glared at him. 

“Did you really call a meeting about your ex?” Allison said. 

“No, I didn’t.” 

“I thought this had to do with Five,” Vanya said to her. 

In an instant, Five had teleported to stand between the couches, brothers on one side and sisters on the other. He looked from Vanya to Diego, eyes narrowed. “Is that so?” he said. “What do I have to do with your friend?” 

“Eudora kind of… met him,” Diego said, waving a hand at Five. “And asked a lot of questions.” He felt the eyes of his siblings boring into his skull and sighed. It’d be better for his sanity to explain what she’d had to say and why it would be a problem, but it was easier to rip the bandage clean off. “She thinks Five is still in school, so we need to keep that lie going.” 

In his seat by the fireplace, Klaus snorted and smothered his laugh in his glass. Allison looked liable to laugh herself even while she asked, “Why call a meeting about this?” 

Vanya said, “Jesus, Diego. You had me thinking something bad was happening.” 

Beside him, Luther was trying to explain that there was more to it than that, but neither Allison nor Vanya were listening, the two of them conversing with each other instead. 

And Five rolled his eyes, looked at the liquor in the glass he held, and downed it in one go. “This is a waste of time,” he said after, glaring at Diego. “I’m doing important work, figuring out where we go from here.” 

Diego scoffed, rising to his feet. “Alright, look. I told Eudora that Mom’s teaching Five and we’re all gonna stick to that. Got it?” They had shut up again, looking at him as he spoke. “I don’t want any of you even hinting that he” -he pointed at Five, meeting his brothers glare with his own- “is anything other than a thirteen year old child.” 

Five’s glare magnified instantly, body tensing like it did before he jumped. “I am not,” he hissed, “a child.” 

“We know that, Five,” Luther spoke up, standing up next to Diego. Literal backup. “But this detective doesn’t, and we can’t have her questioning it.” 

“Why does this even matter?” Five said. He gestured with the empty glass he still held. “The likelihood that I’ll ever run into this woman again is so minimal it isn’t worth calculating. It’s not gonna happen.” 

No better time to drop the news than after that. 

Diego said, “She’ll be here in two days.” 

The room fell quiet again, except for Klaus uttering a quiet “Yay,” from his perch. Diego took advantage of that silence; with this family, he wouldn’t get another chance to actually explain the whole situation. So, he told them about running into Eudora and her initial comments on Five; then about the homeschooling lie, which he’d fill Mom in about later. She’d go with it, he knew she would. 

He left out most of the second half of their conversation. When he’d dated Eudora, he had told her… snippets of his life at the Academy. Never full stories because Diego had hated to bring the place up, hated to even think of his piece of shit father and the borderline abuse they all went through. But he had told her enough for her to get the idea that Diego did not come from a great home, that the Academy was not as grand as the press had made it seem. 

He didn’t tell them any of that, nor did he mention being able to tell when Eudora had started to connect the dots. When she had put a teenage brother together with Diego’s shitty childhood and the fact that his dad hadn’t died until recently. 

He told his family the simplified version. “She wants to check on how things are here. Said she was curious about you guys.” 

“About us?” Allison interrupted. 

On the heels of that, Vanya said, “Curious how?”

“I was getting to that,” Diego said under his breath. He raised his voice again and continued. “Eudora may have said she was curious to see me getting along with my family - don’t ask.” The last bit was directed at Klaus, who looked more than ready to comment on that. “Long as we all act right, she won’t find anything worth looking into.” 

“Wait,” Luther said, frowning at him. “You never said anything about her looking into us.”

Diego ignored him. “What she’s really coming here for,” he said, “is to check on how Five is doing.” 

Just as he expected, Five scoffed. He didn’t say anything, but that may have been because Klaus burst into giddy laughter. “This is gonna be great,” Klaus said. “That poor woman has no idea how batshit insane this family is.” 

“She knows enough,” Diego said. 

Allison said, “Like what? What does she know?” 

Then Klaus: “She dated Diego. You think she hasn’t heard some tales of our loving father?” He met Allison’s gaze with raised brows and a wry smile that she reluctantly returned, though hers faded into a grimace. 

“Yeah, about that,” Luther said. “I was thinking that maybe we should keep Dad out of the conversation if we can.” 

“Good idea,” Diego said. “The less dirt Eudora has on us, the better.” He was certain that, if she had more to dig into, Eudora would be unraveling the whole shitty plan and then the media would know about Five. Anyone who still cared about the Umbrella Academy would be all over that. “Trust me. Eudora’s sharp as hell and if you give her anything, she’ll break this whole thing apart. Keep it simple. Five’s our younger brother, Mom teaches him.” 

“This is going to end badly,” Vanya said. She was watching Five, a deep frown cutting her face. 

Diego followed her gaze, suspicious of how quiet Five had been. The glass he’d been holding had been set on the table behind the couch and he’d shoved his now free hands into his pockets. He still looked tense, like he was ready to bolt. The fierce glare he’d worn had faded to a look Diego would equate to smelling something awful. He met Diego’s gaze for a brief moment, then his eyes flicked to the living room door before flitting around the room. 

It took another second for Diego to realize what he was doing. “Stop that,” he barked, drawing Five’s attention back to him. 

“Stop what?” 

“Lookin’ for a way out of here,” Diego said. 

Five seemed to bristle. 

“This is important,” Diego continued. “You gotta pay attention to this shit.” 

“I am paying attention,” Five said, a sneer warping his features. “It’s pointless. It’s stupid, and it’s not going to achieve anything beyond wasting mine and everyone else’s time.”

“We’re doing this for you,” Luther said. 

“If that were true, then why is she even coming here?” Five said. The anger on his face could melt steel.

“Would have raised suspicions if I told her she couldn’t,” Diego said. He drew a knife from his hip, rolling it through his fingers. 

Five smiled and it was demented, made him look just like someone who could murder an entire room full of people. “Well, if you had more brains than a lobotomized ape, you could have figured something out.” 

Diego took a sharp breath, forced himself to remain patient and not toss the knife in Five’s direction. Murdering his brother before Eudora confirmed he was alright wouldn’t be good. He opened his mouth to retort to that bullshit anyway, but Klaus beat him to it. 

“Ooh, maybe not mention apes?” Klaus said. His smile turned sympathetic as the others looked his way. “You know Luther’s sensitive about that, Fivey.” 

Klaus was an idiot.

“Call me that one more time,” Five growled, his glare giving off a nearly tangible heat, “and I’m stabbing you in the leg.”

Klaus ignored Vanya and Allison telling him not to, leaning forward in his seat and narrowing his eyes at Five. “Fivey.” 

There wasn’t even hesitation on Five’s part. Before anyone had time to react, Five had jolted forward, pulling the knife from Diego’s hand. Another second and he was across the room, stepping out of a spatial rip between Klaus and Luther. He had the knife raised to strike, poised to cross the distance and attack. He stepped forward and Klaus screeched, an ungodly high-pitched noise, and shot out of the chair so fast he nearly tripped himself. Vanya was yelling at Five to stop, Allison was just cursing, but Diego could only watch with wide eyes. 

Luther snapped into action, moving forward and grasping at Five with a meaty hand. He grabbed the arm Five wielded the knife with, putting an end to that threat. It also made for one hell of an unintentionally amusing scene. Luther stood much taller than Five and hadn’t accommodated for the height difference, so Five half-dangled from his grip. Their smallest brother only had one foot on the floor, caught in a lunge toward Klaus. “Guys, stop it,” Luther ordered. “No stabbing during meetings.” 

Diego snorted.

Five turned his gaze to Luther instead of Klaus. The knife was clenched tight in his fist. “Let me go,” he said, low and dangerous. “Or I’m stabbing _you_ instead.” 

“I just said no stabbing,” Luther said. 

“You wouldn’t even feel it,” Five snapped. He yanked his arm but Luther held fast. “Let go!” 

“Luther, for God’s sake,” Allison said. Klaus had positioned himself between his sisters and Allison held one of his hands. “Let him go before he actually hurts you.” 

“He’ll hurt him with that knife,” Klaus said. When Five yet again glared at him, Klaus hissed. “Demon child.” 

Something close to a literal growl rose from Five. Luther released him instantly, stepping back and looking down at his brother like Five was liable to explode. Five tensed, powers twisting around his hands. 

And then Vanya said, louder than Diego had heard her speak in days: “Knock it off!” Everyone’s attention fell on her and she seemed to wilt a bit. After a second’s hesitation, she continued. “Klaus, stop provoking him. Five, drop the knife.”

Klaus raised his free hand in a show of surrender, visibly scooting closer to Allison. 

Five stared at her, with less anger than he’d been directing at his brothers. Aggravation hung over him like a cloud even as the glare faded slowly. His eyes started darting around the room again. 

“Actually, I want that back,” Diego said. “Next time, you can ask for one.” 

A moment passed and then Five offered the knife back, hilt out. He didn’t look at Diego, seemingly focused on the floor instead. Diego stepped around Luther to take it and raised a brow. Five stood stiffly, jaw clenched. When Diego took the knife back, Five’s hand clenched into a fist that he shoved into his shorts’ pocket. Either the little shit was super pissed or itching to leave that second. 

“Are we done yet?” Vanya asked, dragging her gaze from Five to Diego. “I feel like threatening each other means we’re done.” 

“Almost,” Diego said. “You guys have to understand how serious this is.” 

“I think we got it,” Allison said. She paused, tilting her head. “Or, you guys do. I won’t be here, so…” She trailed off with a shrug.

“You gotta keep up with this too,” Diego said. “Whole family’s gotta get with it.” 

Allison rolled her eyes, but lifted her hand from Klaus to wave it at him. She still held her drink with the other and took a long drink from it. 

“If this doesn’t work out, then we’re fucked.” If it didn’t work, then Eudora was gonna have his ass. “Eudora operates by the book, but she’s willing to give us some leeway with this.” And that was only because of their past, because Eudora looked at Five and saw him as Diego’s younger brother. “If she has to, she’ll have the proper authorities on this house in a fuckin’ heartbeat.” 

They were quiet as his words sank in. Allison sighed, deflating almost. She sank back into the couch, leaning against Klaus. “I don’t like how that sounds,” she said quietly. “Proper authorities.” 

Diego grimaced. No surprise that Allison connected the dots first. “Yeah. It won’t be pretty.” He tried to think about how to wrap up this damn meeting, glancing at where Five stood, stiff and unmoving, not looking at any of them.

The sound of heels on the hard floor drew Diego’s attention away, had them all looking over to the basement stairs. Mom looked at them with a soft smile, hands folded over the front of her apron. “I hate to interrupt,” she said, “but dinner will be ready in ten minutes. If you’re all finished here, you can come down now.” 

They didn’t get a chance to respond before the noise of one of Five’s teleports slipped into the brief silence. Diego turned his head back to his brother just in time to see the shimmering blue light fading. He frowned.

And then Klaus rose a hand into the air and said, “I claim Five’s portion.” 

Mom tutted by the door. “You can’t eat your brother’s food, Klaus,” she scolded. “I’ll put it in the fridge for him.” She gave them another smile and then started back the stairs, heels echoing back to them. 

Luther waited until Klaus shot to his feet to say, “Why are you trying to take Five’s food anyway? He needs it. He’s ….small.” 

“Everyone’s small to you,” Klaus said. “You’re a giant, Luther.” 

Allison and Vanya had gotten to their feet as well, all of them heading towards the stairs in a group. It had Diego recalling the endless times they had waited impatiently for the bell signaling a meal, all of them trooping down the main staircase in silence. At least this time, they were talking. 

“Five needs to eat,” Luther was saying to Klaus. “Stop eating his dinner.”

“Oh, who else will?” Klaus asked. He was on Luther’s heels as they descended. “It’s not like Five’s ever at dinner.” 

Diego was behind Klaus, Allison and Vanya bringing up the rear. He heard Vanya ask, “Five isn’t eating dinner?” 

Immediately after her, Allison said, “Don’t worry. I think he comes down here at, like, two in the morning.”

“Which is exactly why Klaus can’t have his portion of dinner,” Luther said. “Five _does_ eat, just. Not with us.” It sounded like he was pouting again. Leave it to Luther to be sad that the prickly ass old man would rather eat alone. 

“And when Five doesn’t eat his dinner in the middle of the night,” Klaus said, “I'll have it for lunch tomorrow. Everyone wins!”

Luther sighed. “You’re not having his dinner.”

Vanya whispered to Allison, voice carrying to Diego in the stairwell: “What the hell does he mean? Allison, is Five eating?”

Allison didn’t even bother whispering. “Yeah, Vanya. Of course he is. I literally saw him down here after everyone else was asleep.” 

“When?”

“Like, three nights ago? I think.” 

Diego really hoped conversation turned away from Five once they sat down to eat. Felt like he’d spent all day talking about the brat.

✦✦✦✦✦

Upstairs, Five stepped out of a portal on shaking legs. He took a deep breath - or tried to but he seemed incapable of breathing correctly at the moment. The air rushed into his lungs and out again so fast it felt like he hadn’t taken any in at all. He stumbled back, hitting the closed door to his room and tried again to get a proper lungful of air. 

It took four tries, and in that time Five gave up on standing and slid down the door to the floor. 

He had spent the entirety of that stupid meeting feeling like something was gnawing at him from the inside out. Had stood there and listened to Diego drone on until his heart was pushing at his ribs in an uneven beat. An uncomfortable itch building in him with every thud of his heart until he had wanted to bolt because maybe fleeing that room would help somehow. 

It hadn’t, he knew that now. If it had, he wouldn’t be sitting on the floor of his room, knees to his chest as he forced himself to breathe properly. 

That ‘family meeting’ had been pointless, a complete waste of time. There were equations to run, half-filled sheets of paper sitting atop Five’s desk where he had left them. He had sacrificed sleep, had ignored meals to redo the math, recalculate and run it all again because he had to know what was coming. He had to figure out where the threat was coming from, had to concoct a way to beat it - and he was doing it for them. For his idiot family who couldn’t even hold a meeting without pissing him off. 

It was stupid.

The meeting, Diego’s cop friend, the entire goddamn situation. The fact that everyone who looked at him thought he was a child. 

The fact that Five sat on his floor, hands shaking as he fought the pressure in his head and inhaled through gritted teeth. Not being in control of himself was stupid, letting Klaus get to him over something as simple as a demeaning childish name was stupid. And maybe he would be better if he’d slept last night- or if he had eaten anything more than a sandwich and candy- 

Or if he was better at keeping all of this locked away deep inside, buried like it had been during the apocalypse. Like he had during the years with the Commission. Five could recognize what was happening, had lost it more than once when he’d been alone in a silent world. Back then, though, he had Delores and she had helped pull him back. She wasn’t here now. He had seen to that, given her a better life than dealing with him and having to watch him lose his shit over a stupid fucking family meeting. 

Five tensed against the door, muscles taunt, back aching. 

He shouldn’t have tried to attack Klaus. He shouldn’t have let himself get this bad, this close to tipping over the edge. He was better than this. 

He drew in a long breath and held it, exhaling it shakily. It was passing now, anxiety leaking out of him like blood from a wound. Every breath left him more tired than the one before it, heart slowing down to a regular tempo. And still he sat there, pressed against his door and gazing at the papers littering his floor. Bed called to him now, the perfectly made sheets begging to him. 

His hands still shook. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey you guys remember back when season 1 ended and there were all those fics where Five was threatened with the cps or whatever  
> cause i do.  
> i snatched at trope and fuckin ran with it lmao
> 
> also please think about Five having panic attacks in the apocalypse, where his only company is Delores who is half a mannequin and a voice in his head (:


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bonding time with diego hargreeves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys i learned an awful lot about how to age whiskey for one stupid bit

Sunrise brought with it orange rays of light that slipped through the open curtains of the window and mixed into the fluorescent glow already shining down. Five sat at his desk, still in his pajamas, staring down at where a sunbeam fell over his wrist. He held a pen loosely in his hand, poised just over the page he had been working on before he’d slept. 

Dust floated through the air, sunlight catching it in ways the fluorescent bulbs never could emulate. Five watched it for a while until his eyes slipped closed again, head lolling to his chest. Seconds later, he jerked himself awake, sitting up straighter. He glanced down at his work and frowned; he’d drawn a scraggly line across it when he’d fallen asleep. He tried to remember what this particular equation was for but couldn’t quite pull the words from his sleep-fogged mind. It was important, though, whatever it was. Important enough to make his chest itch with the sort of uncomfortable gnaw that preceded those anxiety riddled fits. 

Frowning, Five cast another look out his window. The sun had yet to peak over the buildings; while the sky remained dark where he could see it, the orange rays slowly spilled into the alleyway. When he had awoken, it was still dark but he wagered he had been awake nearly half an hour now, and had slept around three hours. 

A decent amount, all things considered. More than he got most nights. Definitely more than he caught at a time. Hour long naps over his work or in the living room were what kept him going. It was enough to keep him on his feet, keep him moving and thinking and analyzing the possibilities that stretched out from this house. In the event that these hour rests weren’t enough, there was always coffee. It was exactly what he needed now, actually. 

He tossed the pen aside and rose from his chair, leaving his room with the paper clutched in one hand. The door stood open behind him, lighting up the third floor. Five glanced from Ben’s empty room to the staircase and blinked down it to the second floor. There, he paused, listening for any movement from his brothers. Luther’s snores could be heard all the way down the hallway, but there was no noise from behind the closed doors of Klaus’s room. He continued down the hall softly, pausing at the corner that led to the entrance. 

Grace sat just ahead, the faint blue lights of her charger the only sign she was still in her customary position. She’d likely be awake soon, readying the kitchen for breakfast. Five aimed to be out of there before she had awoken from the robotic slumber, otherwise he’d be subjected to her misdirected love again. He blinked past her as well, to the staircase landing. 

There wasn’t a need to be quiet from this point onward. The house was dark and silent; the sun hadn’t quite pierced through the windows at the back of the stairs nor the ones in the living room. Five navigated the space on memory, a practiced path through the darkness from most every night since they had arrived here. He only tripped once over an object that had not been on the floor the previous day. Finding the light in the kitchen was more tricky. He could never quite remember where it was and had, on more than one occasion, resorted to opening the fridge and using the dull light from it as a guide. He used it again today, and as he returned to shut the refrigerator door, he paused. 

A plate of food sat on the middle shelf, his name written neatly across the foil covering it. He considered it briefly, then sighed and reached in to pull it out. The previous night’s dinner, wrapped up and set aside for him by Grace. He set it on the counter and went to start a fresh pot of coffee.

While the coffee brewed, Five lifted himself up on the counter to sit and wait. He listened to the coffee drip, to the quiet whir of the fridge’s motor, to the first sounds of traffic picking up outside. He stared down at the sheet of paper, at the more or less complete equation scrawled on it. There were many things it could be - he had an entire list in the back of his mind, a list he referred to again and again when something nagged at him. 

And this was only one sheet from what was a multi-page equation. He could tell. The line at the top didn’t make mathematical sense on its own. He wondered how tired he had been when he had started, if the math would add up correctly once he had his morning coffee. Maybe if he’d brought down the entire equation and laid it out from start to finish, he would actually remember what it was about, what had set him off on writing it. 

He had the sinking feeling it was about Vanya, though. Something to do with her music? Most likely. 

Sighing, Five set the paper aside and reached for the plate of food instead. He ripped the foil away, revealing a piece of chicken and a healthy assortment of greens. Without bothering to heat it up or find a utensil, Five picked at it, pulling a shred of chicken loose and tossing it in his mouth. He chewed without really tasting it,already thinking back on the possibilities that Vanya would yet again be the bomb. 

If he were honest, it was inevitable. Two apocalypses in two weeks, and the root cause of both lay in Vanya’s uncontrolled and immeasurable powers. She needed to gain control over it, something that could take years and years - perhaps even decades, or the rest of her life. She may never hold control over it and at any given moment, the world could shatter around them. 

Vanya had destroyed the moon. Vanya had brought about nuclear war. 

What else was she capable of? An earthquake had pulled Five from a nightmare a few days ago, something he had immediately attributed to Vanya. But could she really do that? Could Vanya cause earthquakes? Such cataclysmic quakes that it would set off a chain reaction, spurring the earth to split apart or triggering volcanic eruptions that coated the land in lava and soaked the sky in ash. 

Five had already lived through one world of ash. That gray sky still haunted him, caused him to look at the dark skies of a rainstorm and see it. See the particles in the air, threatening to coat his lungs and choke him to death in his sleep. 

The scent of brewing coffee filled the air, but all Five could smell was the thick scent of soot. That acrid smell of a fire, of something burning - but it wasn’t a fire, it was just… ash. Everywhere. The chicken he had been eating tasted of it, souring what he knew to be a tasty home-cooked meal. 

Five made a face and forced the meat down anyway. He set the plate on top of the sheet of paper, looking to the coffee instead. It was nearly finished so he twisted around, pulling open a cabinet and taking a clean mug out of it before hopping off the counter. 

He no longer cared what the equation was for. It may come to him again in the near future, but now there was a new map to trace. Vanya was always the bomb, but perhaps he could cross a few things off that she  _ wouldn’t _ cause. Like, for instance, these cataclysmic earthquakes his mind wouldn’t shake off. Maybe, by narrowing it down, he could find a way to help her and stop it from happening altogether. 

Five took his coffee and made his way back upstairs through a quick series of blinks. Not a single noise came from his brothers’ rooms and Grace still sat, frozen. For a moment, he felt like the only living occupant in the house - but he forced it away as he took his seat at his desk. 

He had no time for the apocalypse shadowing his every move. 

There was work to be done. 

✦✦✦✦✦

Five worked for hours, through the morning and past lunch. He’d gone downstairs once to retrieve another cup of coffee, around mid-morning, and Luther and Klaus had been eating breakfast. They had spoken to him but he hadn’t heard a word, just filled the mug and blinked away again. He would make it up to them later, when he was sure the world wasn’t going to end again. 

For now, he worked and worked, hunching over his desk. He finished one equation, frowned at the results, and threw the sheet behind him to redo it. At some point, defining what Vanya wouldn’t do to the world became a grim task. Any hope he had held of it narrowing down what would cause the next apocalypse faded around the time he wrote the third possibility out. Every time, no matter what he was chasing, the probability came back too high, the numbers written in his own handwriting causing an anxious knot to form in his gut. 

It was beginning to look as though Vanya was capable of anything. 

Every horrible thing he could think of, Vanya could make happen and the world was over. 

To give himself a break, Five had shoved the stack of papers aside and took a marker out instead. On the wooden surface of his desk, he began a new calculation, just to see if the rest of his siblings would somehow trigger a world-ending event. 

He was halfway through when his door opened. He paused, marker pressed into the wood, and said, “What is it?” without looking up. 

“You aren’t even dressed,” was the response. Luther. 

Five sighed, glancing away from his work to look at himself. Still in pajamas, now with ink stains on one sleeve. He looked over at where Luther took up the whole doorway. “What do you care?” 

“Diego called,” Luther said. “He’s on his way with Patch. The detective, remember?” 

He blinked, eyes widening a fraction before narrowing. He tore his gaze off Luther to stare down at his desk, tracing over the equation. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I remember.” Now that Luther had mentioned it, the entire stupid ordeal slammed back into him. It had been forgotten temporarily, pushed aside for the more pressing matters Five had to tend to. 

“So, we need you dressed,” Luther was saying. “It’s a Thursday and you’re supposed to be in school.” He shrugged when Five looked back at him. “Just get dressed, Five. Look presentable. We can tell her you were doing… whatever the hell this is all morning. Math?” He took a step forward, squinting and peering down at the desk’s surface from several feet away. “Looks like math.” 

Five bit down the retort, the itch to explain just what all this was for. Luther wouldn’t understand, not the math required nor the reason why it had to be done. “Sure. It’s math,” he said instead. “Now get out.” 

“Get dressed,” Luther repeated. “Be downstairs in fifteen.” 

“Get out,” Five repeated. Irritation bled through his gaze when Luther didn’t move. “How do you expect me to get dressed when you won’t leave? I’m not going to change with you standing there.” He tapped the marker against the desk, leaving black dots at the tail end of his work. 

Luther made a face, the exact one he did when he was either failing to lie or trying to find a way out of giving bad news. 

Five waited. 

“One more thing,” Luther said. He was backing out of the doorway now, slowly. “Uh, Diego said that Patch thinks your name is Fievel?” 

He stared.

Luther had backed out of the door completely, watching Five with wide eyes. 

Five took a breath, and snarled,  _ “What.” _

“Blame Klaus,” Luther said. He whipped the door closed so fast the frame cracked in several places. 

Silence settled in while Five sat there, staring at where Luther had just stood. His eye twitched. Anger swirled in his gut the longer he sat there, absorbing the sheer absurdity of the situation. Diego’s cop friend was more of a problem than she should have been. The woman never should have pushed her way into their business and Diego should have had enough sense not to invite her over - but of course he didn’t. Diego had regularly proven himself to be the most idiotic of all his siblings. 

Five wrenched his gaze from the door to the work on his desk, only to find that with Luther’s interruption, he couldn’t remember what he had been about to write. The figures were at the edge of his mind, an easy enough trail to pick up if he had the time to refocus - but of course he didn’t, because Diego was an idiot and Five had to play a role in a half-baked plan he never agreed with. 

He stood, tossing the marker behind him with enough force that it bounced off the wooden floor and rolled off somewhere. Five shoved his chair back with a scrape that jolted along his spine and only made his irritation grow. He dressed only because he wanted a drink and refused to go downstairs in his pajamas at this time of day.

He made his way downstairs quickly, blinking past the second floor in the hopes of avoiding his brothers. The ground floor of the house was blissfully quiet, no sign of Luther nor Klaus. It wouldn’t surprise Five if neither of them showed their faces until Diego’s friend had left. While it was irritating that Luther would bother him and then disappear, Five appreciated knowing he could help himself to their deceased father’s whiskey without being disturbed. 

Grace was already in the living room when Five entered. She sat by the fireplace on the far wall, underneath the portrait of Reginald, humming quietly to herself as she worked away at a needlepoint. Five didn’t mind; he may never quite know how to respond to her, but Grace was far less vocal with her disapproval than his siblings. She looked up at his footsteps, flashing a smile that he only looked at briefly. “Good afternoon,” she said. Her voice carried, dogged his heels as he walked stiffly to the bar. “It’s a lovely day today, isn’t it?” 

“Turning out to be the opposite,” Five said, more to himself than to her. He knelt behind the bar, pulling out a clean glass and a mostly full bottle of whiskey. Setting the glass on the counter, he raised his voice for her to hear. “It’s fine.” He paused to fill his glass and take a sip. Their father may have been an asshole, but he had fine taste in liquor. “I’d rather not to have to play along with this stupid cherade of Diego’s, but- well.” He ended the sentence with a halfhearted shrug and a long swallow of whiskey. 

On the other side of the room, Grace rose to her feet. She set the needlepoint in the chair she had been seated in and made her way over to him. Five drank as she did, using the lull in expected polite conversation to put away half the glass. Shortly, Grace stood just a few feet in front of him and while she still wore a loving smile, her eyes were narrowed in motherly disappointment. “Five,” she said, “are you sure you should be drinking before we have company?” 

Five knew she didn’t approve of his drinking. Hell, she barely tolerated her (physically) adult children’s bad habits, but she couldn’t exactly stop him. 

Five also knew that he was much more liable to play nice if he had a little alcohol in his system. “It’ll be fine,” he told Grace. “I can handle myself.” 

She made a quiet, disapproving noise as Five topped off his drink. After a long moment of quiet, she said, “Well! I think this will be exciting. We so rarely have company these days.” Her smile had brightened up again, though she had turned from Five to look around at the vast living room. He expected her to continue talking but she began humming again instead. A soft wordless tune that did nothing to quell the unease crawling down his spine. 

He hated this waiting. Even when there was no work to be done, wasting time like this was irritable at best. At its worst, Five felt like he did today - like his heart was stuck in his throat, anxiety rippling through him like an acidic burn to his bones. The whiskey was a cheap salve, quick and easy but not all that effective. It was all he had at the moment, though, so he’d take it. He drank as Grace meandered her way toward the door with a slow gait, heels clacking against the floor. 

The doorbell shattered the quiet. Instantly, Five clutched the glass tighter, inhaling sharply. His heart thudded heavy against his chest, somehow rising into his throat and sinking into his gut at the same time. He wasn’t ready for this - to deal with another person, to lie and pretend to be a child when he hadn’t been for so very long. To pretend the anxiety wasn’t boiling within him. 

He pushed back from the bar, took a step around it, and stumbled. A sudden wave of dizziness washed over him, leaving just as quick as it came. Left him lightheaded and off balance - like he was moments away from hitting the floor. He cursed under his breath and reached for the bar with his free hand. Instead, a hand grasped his arm. Five snapped his gaze up to meet Grace’s concerned eyes. She opened her mouth to speak and before she even had one word out, Five shook her off and disappeared. 

The teleport led to the foyer, Five stepping out to stand next to the table there. The dizziness threatened to rise again and he frowned, shaking his head against it. It wasn’t that hard to figure out; he hadn’t eaten much today and alcohol, though helpful for his current problem, was not great on an empty stomach. Maybe - just maybe - he should have eaten more before drinking something like whiskey. Even another sandwich would have worked. Hell, he could go make one now and still arrive in time to talk to Diego’s friend. Could even use feeling unwell as an excuse for being late. 

But the door was opening. Five froze, watching as both doors swung open and Diego entered, a woman at his side. The detective, the one investigating their family - investigating  _ him _ \- and yet all Five did was meet Diego’s stare with his own. 

“What’re you doing?” Diego asked. He had stopped two steps into the entrance, staring Five down with suspicious eyes. 

Five said, “Getting the door,” with a wicked smile. “Obviously.”

Diego wanted to argue that; it was written all over his face. He didn’t have a chance to say anything, though, because Grace was crossing the space to them. In true fashion of his unwavering love for their mother, Diego choked down whatever retort he’d had and deferred to introducing Grace to the woman at his side. 

Grace’s eyes lingered on Five for a moment before she focused on the pair - and Five, for his part, did not flee through a spatial rip like every nerve in his body was commanding. He stomped down the urge, drinking from the glass instead, resolutely staring down Diego. 

“I’m Eudora Patch,” the woman said. “I’m a friend of Diego’s from the police academy.” 

“It’s so lovely to meet you,” Grace said. 

Their polite smalltalk was grating. Five entertained the idea of butting in, telling them all that he wasn’t aware Diego had any friends. Or bringing attention to the fact that Diego couldn’t quite make it in the police force. What a shame. Such a complete and total mystery. Every impulsive hurtful way to twist this back at Diego rose and fell like the tides, a new idea pulsating with each heavy beat of his heart. 

As if he read his mind, Diego shook his head minutely. 

Five smirked. His brother was lucky he hadn’t already left, lucky that Five cared enough about them all to play pretend for even a few minutes. 

And then the woman, Eudora Patch, her gaze turned to him. She said, “And you’re Fievel, right?” Her voice was pleasant, soft yet with a demanding edge to it. There was nothing about it or the words to make him react as he did. 

He stiffened, a barely repressed snarl twisting the smirk off his face. He snapped his gaze off Diego to her instead. She looked nice enough, a little stern maybe; hair pulled back, a badge hanging around her neck. She had been smiling but it melted away as he glared at her. 

Diego spoke before she did. “Uh, he- he really prefers Five.” 

“Right,” she said. “Sorry. Five, then.” 

The smile he forced back up felt fake and twisted. “Apology accepted, detective,” he said. At least the anger hadn’t bled into his words - no more than usual, anyway. 

Her brows rose. “You can call me Eudora,” she said. 

“Let’s keep this professional. No need to get too familiar.” He took a sip of whiskey, relishing the warmth of it burning down his throat. 

Diego said, “Five,” in a warning tone. 

“It’s alright,” Patch told him. She swatted at Diego with one hand, her eyes still on Five. Then she took a step forward, stopping immediately when Five stepped back as she did. He was under a foolish obligation to speak to her. There had never been any rules about having to be in close proximity to the woman. 

And if she got any closer to him, he was going to snap. Something was going to break inside him - some part of the tightly coiled anxiety or the pressure building in the back of his head or the need to get away from all of this - 

The detective ignored both Diego and Grace to ask him, “What’ve you got there, kid?” She gestured at his glass as she spoke. 

She was trying to make conversation with him. He knew this. But his gaze flickered to Diego, and the anger in him won out. “Whiskey,” he said. The immediate reaction was enjoyable - the detective’s face fell into a look that was half disbelief, half surprise. “Vintage. From 1952, I believe.” He swirled the liquor in the glass for a brief moment before taking another sip of it. 

Patch’s face settled into a horrified look that reminded Five of some of the more bureaucratic types in the Commission. The look of someone whose sense of morals was rocked by something he’d done. 

Diego muttered, “Christ, Five.” 

“Whiskey,” Patch repeated. 

“That is what I said.” He lifted the drink in her direction, a mockery of a toast. He smiled and it was no doubt more convincing than the previous ones - a smile born of a vindictive need to irritate his brother. “Would you care for some, detective? I’m sure I left some in the bottle.” 

Patch turned to look at Grace. “Do you usually let your son drink alcohol?” she asked. 

Grace played the part of a mother well - she was built for it, afterall. The concern on her face was undoubtedly real. “Of course not,” she said, and she sounded as scandalized as the detective looked. 

“He probably broke into the liquor cabinet,” Diego said. He glared Five down, a challenge if Five had ever seen one. “Even though he knows damn well he shouldn’t have.” 

“Well, someone left it unlocked,” Five said, “and I’ve had a rough day.” His vindictive smile grew into a shark’s grin of bared teeth. 

“You’re thirteen,” Diego said. “Give me the drink.” 

Ever obstinate, Five raised the glass to his lips and took a long swallow. 

“Five, give it here,” Diego said. He pushed into the space between Grace and Patch, shouldering the detective aside in his haste to get to Five. Which, naturally, had Five scrabbling backwards, leading Diego closer to the stairs. “Give me the drink, you little shit!”

There was less than half the glass left now. Five chugged it one go, listening to Grace scolding them - “Boys! Don’t fight!” - and meeting Diego’s furious glare as he tossed the glass over his shoulder. It shattered onto the stairs with a satisfying noise. The breaking glass caused Diego’s face to contort with fresh anger, a look that Five met with a bright smile. He heard the quiet sigh from Grace, the murmur of the detective’s voice. Both were unimportant, Five’s attention still on his brother. 

Diego had taken another step forward, now less than a foot from where Five stood - and every inch between them was simultaneously too close and too far, a chasm that Diego could leap in an instant. When he spoke, Diego pitched his voice lower so he could speak freely without the detective hearing. “What the hell is your problem?” he snarled. “I asked you do to one damn thing -“

“You didn’t ask me anything,” Five interrupted. He didn’t bother speaking quietly and the other two present looked at them. “You told me to be here. And here I am.” 

“Then why don’t you act your damn age -”

Five cut him off with a short, angry laugh. “I am.”

Diego’s glare strengthened, his brow furrowing and eyes narrowing a bit more than they already wore. He threw an arm out, gesturing behind Five to the glass on the stairs. “No,” he said - and his voice rose to match Five’s. “You’re acting like a spoiled child!”

A white-hot flash of renewed anger burst to life. A lance of indignation that shot through him, burying itself into his gut. Another fine addition to the mess he already choked back. The brief amusement he’d held after drinking - the petty victory of finishing off the whiskey - it evaporated into smoke rising from him. “Isn’t that what you want?” he hissed. 

He heard the detective say, “Diego, he  _ is  _ a child,” and spread his arms a bit. An encompassing gesture at his current body, every inch a teenager. 

“Yeah,” Diego said, “but he knows how to act better.” His eyes never left Five. 

Something about Diego’s agreement twisted the bundle of anger and anxiety in his stomach. Renewed bursts of both spawned along his spine and into his shoulders, made him tense up under the uniform. He knew this was what people saw, what every single person thought. He used it to his own advantage numerous times - but it was different somehow to have Diego acknowledge it. Different in a way Five very much did not care for. 

Right. 

It was time to go. Five pulled his powers to him, a twist of space that he felt curling around his fingers. He turned into it, but before the rip formed, Diego had bolted forward and grabbed hold of his arm. Five froze momentarily, eyes flitting from Diego’s face to the fingers digging into his arm. 

“No, you don’t,” Diego said. “You don’t get to fuck off.” 

“Well, I’m not staying here.” He yanked away from Diego with more force than necessary, stumbling a bit. The lightheaded dizziness from earlier threatened to rise again; he felt the edges of it itching to take hold. He wanted to blink away simply because it was quicker, but if one fast movement left him feeling the effects of the alcohol, then he shouldn’t. Just to be safe. 

He turned from Diego instead, crossing the entrance on stiff legs. Not to the living room, no - Five headed for the dining room on the opposite side, throwing the door open violently. He heard Diego following, heavy footsteps and all. He heard his name flying from his brother’s lips like a curse and snarled at the empty room. 

The formal table sat, all chairs pushed in, waiting for the day they used it once again. Five stormed past it, feeling the fury and the cold bitter anxiety tying together, crawling under his skin until his hands shook. And, underneath it all, the quiet hunger he was aiming to abate. 

He’d make himself another sandwich, and then he was going back upstairs. No one was going to bother him and if they did, he’d take someone’s arm off. 

Except Diego was following him. Diego tried to snag his arm again and Five shook him off, shoving the door to the kitchen open. The instant the door shut behind them, Diego said, “What the hell is wrong with you!?” Two rooms away from his detective friend, Diego apparently saw no point in keeping his voice down. He was loud, anger coating his words. 

Five didn’t look at him. Kept his attention on the fridge as he dug out ingredients without paying much attention, almost on autopilot. “I’m not playing your foolish game anymore,” he said, tossing a package of meat onto the counter. “I am not going to stand there and play pretend for some idiot detective.” 

“Don’t call her an idiot,” Diego said. “You know why we gotta do this, Five. We talked about it before she came over.” 

“I’m not playing your game,” Five said again. Cheese joined the meat and he stepped away, letting the fridge door coast on its hinges to close silently. He shot Diego a brief withering glare before climbing onto the counter and opening cabinets. Somewhere in this place was a loaf of bread, but he couldn’t remember where it was past the anger clouding his mind. 

“It’s not a game. It’s your life I’m out there trying to protect -” 

A stuttered laugh rose from Five’s throat, choked with more anxiety than anger. “You’re protecting me?” he asked. He turned to look Diego in the eyes, a smile sawing his face in two. It felt wrong - too tight, too vicious. “I don’t need protection, Diego. Least of all from  _ you.” _

He could tell Diego was trying to take charge of the conversation. That he was trying to rein in his own anger. Diego was silent for a moment before he said, “Big words from the kid on the counter.” 

Five sat on his knees currently, his feet hanging over the edge of the counter; one hand held a door of a cabinet open. He knew very well how ridiculous he looked, but- “Call me a kid again,” he snarled, “and I can’t promise you’re leaving this room unharmed.” 

Diego’s eyes narrowed. “Is that your problem?” he asked. “That we’re calling you a child?”

“No.” Maybe a little. “This entire situation is unnecessary -“

“I’m trying to keep your ass away from the CPS,” Diego said. “And to do that, you gotta pretend to be an innocent child with proper schooling. You have to do this, Five.” 

“I don’t have to do shit,” Five said. The hard granite of the counter was making his knees hurt and his grip on the cabinet door was too tight. “Except maybe work to protect you idiots - because it’s always me doing the protecting, isn’t it? This whole family” -he spread his free arm out, gesturing at the room and the house beyond it- “is incapable of saving themselves from anything unless I’m there to lead you all to safety.” 

Diego still held his shoulders stiffly, standing with tension - undoubtedly, the same kind of tension that was winding through Five. He said, “We don’t always need you to help us out, Five. We were doing perfectly fine before you showed up again.” 

Did he mean the original timeline? The initial run of 2019, where Five had lived out hell in person? Or did he mean the sixties? Either way, he was wrong. “You caused an  _ apocalypse!” _ His voice shot up in volume without him meaning it to. “Twice!” 

And Five had seen them die-

Diego crossed the room with long strides, coming to stand in front of Five. He was too close now and Five recoiled on reflex, slamming his shoulder into the cabinet door with a wince. “Who do you think stopped the last one?” He prodded Five in the chest with a finger. “ ‘Cause it sure as hell wasn’t you.” 

Five knocked his hand away. “I was trying to get us home,” he said. Sitting on the counter like this, he was eye level with Diego. 

“By killing the entire board,” Diego said. “Yeah. I know.” 

“I did that to help you -“

“And we still got by without you!” Diego said. “We stopped an apocalypse, regrouped, and it was Vanya that saved our asses at that farm. Not you.” He prodded Five again, harder this time. Five twisted where he sat, shoving a foot into Diego’s gut and pushing him away. Diego let him, still talking. “You gotta realize that we don’t need you to help us all the time. We’re adults, Five.” 

Five wished dearly that he had the energy reserves to trust his power at that moment. His hands shook - every breath rattled in his chest, every heartbeat was a hammer to his ribs. He’d shoved Diego back and the air was still too thin. “Everything I do,” he said, “is to fix this family’s mistakes. Every single mistake you idiots make, I have to fix it. That’s what I’m here for.” 

“We’re adults,” Diego repeated. “We can fix our own mistakes, with or without your help.” 

Five shook his head. If that were true, he wouldn’t have watched them fall in a rain of gunfire. 

“Y’know what, just make that another thing you need to learn about us,” Diego was saying. “We fix our own mistakes.” 

They had died, one by one, bleeding out onto the hay-scattered ground of a barn. “No,” Five said. “You don’t.” 

Diego was quiet for a brief moment - and in that moment, Five saw it again; all of them dead or dying. “Even if we don’t, you can’t fix all of it. Not even your powers can solve everything.” 

“I can,” Five said. He slid from the counter, hitting the floor with unsteady feet. “I can fix anything.” He had to, or else these idiots were going to die again. 

“Yeah? Then why not start with Eudora?” 

That was a challenge issued out of nowhere. It threw Five off balance a bit, his mind clambering to shift from the memory of his dead siblings to the nonsense Diego was saying. He stood there, staring at his brother, trying to find the words to express how little he cared about the detective - but it was lost behind the ever-present anxiety. It threatened to amplify into restless energy, the sort that would lead to him bent over probability equations until the late hours of the night. The kind of energy that forced him into acting lest something happen, lest his laziness lead to destruction that he could have prevented. 

Except this time, he didn’t know what he was working to prevent. There were numerous outcomes, an untold number of things that could come down on them - and all his work was upstairs. Away from this kitchen, this stupid pretend show of Diego’s. 

“I have important work to do,” he said finally, glare renewed. It was all too easy to push anxiety into anger and project that at Diego. “Much more important than this charade of yours.” 

“Yeah, you always say that,” Diego said. “But all I hear is that you lock yourself in your room and don’t leave.”

He’d leave when he had an answer, when there was something concrete to show for his work. 

When leaving it unfinished wouldn’t mean death for all of them. 

“Our brothers are idiots,” Five said. “This whole family is made up of idiots.” 

“Except for you, right?”

“Yeah.” He bared his teeth in a grin. “That’s right.” 

Diego shook his head, disbelief and muted rage pushing his lips into a frown. “You’re an asshole.” 

“Thanks.” He gestured to the kitchen door with one hand. “Now get away from me.” 

“Not until you go back out there.” 

“I’m not going to,” Five snapped. “How many times do I have to say it before it gets through that simple brain of yours? I am not talking to that detective. I am going upstairs and I am doing my work.”

_ “What _ work?” It was a demand more than a question. “What the hell are you doing that’s so damn important?” 

There were many ways to answer that. “You’ll know when it’s necessary.” 

Diego met Five’s glare with his own. He almost looked tired now, like dealing with Five was wearing him down. “That so?” 

Five nodded once. 

“Could find out right now,” Diego said. “All I gotta do is go upstairs and take a look.”

“You wouldn’t understand it.” 

“Nope. Probably not. But I know where Klaus keeps his lighters and I damn well know how to light shit on fire.” 

It only took a second for the meaning to his words to sink in. Five’s eyes widened in alarm before he snarled, “You wouldn’t dare.” 

“Oh, I would.” 

They both knew he would. They knew that Diego would march upstairs and set a lighter to the pile of papers on Five’s desk. And Five, unable to teleport and with shorter legs, would not be able to keep up. He had a startling mental image of his entire desk in flames while Diego stood by, watching him with mocking eyes. 

“Go back out there,” Diego was saying. “Play nice like a good kid. Then you go shut yourself away from the rest of us as long as you like.” 

“You touch that work, and I’ll -“

“Kill me?” Diego said. He leaned closer to Five, staring him down. “You gonna kill me, Five? After all the work you did to get us back here?” 

His hands clenched into tight fists again, fingers scraping over the counter where one hand lay. He said, “You can’t burn that work,” through gritted teeth. 

Diego said nothing. 

“It’s important.” He didn’t mean to say what came out next, but it slipped past - “That work is gonna save all of you.” 

Diego’s fierce stare wavered, curiosity budging in. “Save us from what?” 

“It’s -” Unfinished, unknown, impossible to predict but it was coming and Five was positive it’d be worse than before. Something would find them, sitting here, playing house like anyone knew what they were doing. “We have to be prepared.” If they weren’t - if they insisted on lounging around the Academy, on scattering themselves across the country - then everything Five had done was for naught. The world would be gone, his family would be gone, and somehow it will have been his fault. 

Diego fell silent, thinking it over. Then, he said, “You’re a paranoid old man. Get yourself together and get out there. Talk to Eudora.” 

Why was it so difficult to make this idiot understand? Sure, Five hadn’t necessarily explained anything but given his record of being right about world-ending events, his family should be a little more inclined to believe him. His instinct now was to continue arguing until Diego either saw reason or the detective left. It was easiest, however, to bite it all back and say, “Fine. I’ll go talk to the detective.” 

“Good.” 

“After I get something to eat,” Five added. 

Diego glanced at the packages of meat and cheese on the counter. “You got ten minutes,” he said, looking back to Five. “And if you’re not out there by then, I’m comin’ to drag your little ass back.” 

Five grunted an agreement, waiting until Diego left and the door shut behind him to move. It took a few seconds for him to continue searching for the bread, to even remember what he’d come in here for. All he wanted to do was head upstairs immediately, disappear somewhere in the depths of the Academy where he could work without worrying that Diego would kick down his door. Every nerve in his body ached to leave here, itched for a rip to take him far away until he could relax. 

But the food was necessary. Be it the anxiety or the alcohol he’d drank (or the lack of food he’d had, the lack of attention to taking care of his own basic needs) - whatever it was, Five was shaky and uneven. He needed food. Calories. After he’d had his fill of food, he’d be free to go wherever the hell he wanted. 

First things first: Given Diego’s bullheaded idiocy, he would definitely come back for Five after ten minutes. Probably even before the time limit was up. So, Five slapped together a sandwich as quickly as possible and headed for the stairs. The plan was to go upstairs, get his work, and eat as he walked. By the time he had the papers in hand, he should have enough calories in him to teleport further into the Academy’s halls. 

Except the first bite set his stomach on fire with the need for more. Five detoured at the stairs immediately, practically inhaling the sandwich as he went down rather than up. In the basement kitchen, he found Klaus seated at the table, eating slowly from a bowl of pasta. Five barely glanced his way before crossing the room. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be upstairs?” Klaus asked. 

Five paused in grabbing snacks to glare over his shoulder.

Klaus raised both hands in surrender, fork falling into his food as he did. “Hey, no judgment here.” He continued on with the sort of nonsense Five had come to expect from Klaus, half-formed stories about how and why he disliked detectives. 

Five picked up two entire boxes of snack food, the half-empty container of cake slices, and opened the fridge to pull a bottle of water out. As he turned to leave, he cut across Klaus’s story with, “If Diego asks, you never saw me.”

“Yeah, sure.” Klaus waved at him as he turned the corner to ascend the stairs. 

✦✦✦✦✦

After ten minutes passed, Diego kept to his promise. He excused himself from the living room and crossed the entrance with long strides. He was unsurprised to find the kitchen empty, no signs that Five had even been there aside from a cabinet door still standing open and breadcrumbs on the counter. The anger had lessened in the company of Eudora and Mom, but a dull spike of it regrew as he took in the empty room. 

“Gonna kill that asshole,” Diego muttered to himself. He left the kitchen door open, heading back to the living room. As he took his seat again, he announced to them, “Well, Five’s not coming back. Little shit’s disappeared somewhere.” 

Mom sighed, her smile dimming. “That boy,” she said quietly. It was clearly an unfinished thought and Diego was in no hurry to hear the rest of it. 

Eudora turned a skeptical eye on him. “Disappeared?” she asked. 

“You’ve seen the size of this place,” Diego said to her. “I’ll check his room in a bit, but there’s no telling where he’s gone.” Unless he searched the whole house, Diego probably wouldn’t even see Five until the next time he came over. 

“It’s fine,” Eudora said after a moment. “Kid drank a glass of whiskey. Maybe he just doesn’t feel good.” 

Diego grunted. It was possible, sure. But it was far more likely that Five had lied to his face and ran - because that’s what Five did. Fuck the effort anyone else put into the family; if it wasn’t his idea, then it was as good as the dirt under their feet. 

At least Eudora seemed to like talking with Mom. She listened to the stories about the Hargreeves’ collective childhood, and even took the assurance that Five’s pretend childhood was much better. Mom, for her credit, did exactly as Diego had asked her to. She played up the idea of a healing, nurturing home - though she left out the part about it only being that kind of home after Dad had fucked off and died. She painted such a realistic picture of how the loss of a father affected young Five that even Diego could believe it. 

If they were lucky, Eudora may even attribute some of Five’s pissiness to the passing of their father. 

After a little over an hour, Eudora was ready to leave. She waved off Mom’s offer of a quick dinner and let Diego walk her to the door. And there, while she stood outside and Diego inside, she said, “I can’t really ask your mom any other questions. She seems like a great mom.” 

“She is,” Diego agreed. 

Eudora said, “Yeah, I know how much you care about her.” 

“Yeah, well. You met her, you get it now.” 

Eudora nodded, but she rolled her eyes while she did. “Sure, Diego.” 

In the quiet that fell then, Eudora turned to take a step down from the door. But she stopped, turning to look at Diego expectantly. Like she knew he wanted to say something else. With all the time they’d spent together, she could probably tell what he was thinking. 

Painfully tense seconds passed by before Diego settled on what to say. “You’re not gonna… call anyone on us, are you?” he asked. When she didn’t immediately respond, his heart rate spiked and he rushed to add, “I mean, Five’s an asshole, but he’s -” 

“Your brother,” Eudora said. She had completely given up the pretense of leaving, arms crossed over her chest. She stared Diego down with the sort of intense stare that had always shaken him up. Like she was trying to see into his soul. “Your teenage brother, who you yelled at for quite a while.” 

Diego sighed. How long had she been waiting to bring that up? “I wasn’t yelling at him,” he said. “That was an argument.” 

“Sounded like yelling where I was,” she said. “Is it really a surprise he didn’t come back?” 

No, it wasn’t. But Diego wasn’t going to say that and let Eudora think an argument had scared Five off. As if anything could scare that fucker. “He didn’t come back ‘cause he’s a liar,” Diego said. 

Eudora frowned. “You were yelling at him -”

“I was not yelling.“

“ -and you expected him to tell the truth?” 

If he weren’t trying to sell her a lie, Diego would have told her exactly how obstinate Five could be. How he only told them what he thought they should know, which probably made half of what he said lies. Instead, he said, “What’s your point, Eudora?” 

Her brows raised, a silent threat. 

“Right - Patch. Sorry.” 

“My point,” she said, “is that you’re being too hard on a kid.” A blunt statement, leaving no room for argument. She ignored Diego trying to speak, rolling over his half-formed words with her own. “You’ve been insulting a child since I got here, yelled at a kid - and don’t you even try and say you weren’t. I get it, okay? The kid broke into the liquor, but he’s a teenager. They do stupid things.” 

Diego wasn’t sure how, exactly, he signed up for a lecture. He tried not to look as annoyed as he felt, but judging by how harshly Eudora stared at him, he failed. “Trust me,” he said. “If you knew anything about Five, you’d get why we argued.” 

Eudora was silent for a handful of long, tense seconds. Finally, she said, “Maybe I should come over again, then.”

“...What?” 

“Yeah,” she said. “I can come visit, and maybe this time you can keep your brother in the room. Without yelling at him.” 

He knew from experience that arguing with Eudora got him nowhere. It’d be so damn hard to get Five to agree to this one meeting, though, that another may be impossible. He said as much to Eudora, but she gave him a patient smile that was two steps from judgmental. 

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” she said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this wasn't supposed to take as long as it did, my bad. i fought with it at several points, and then had two separate multi-day long bouts of depression within the span of two weeks.   
> its been an interesting time.


End file.
